A comparative evaluation of panicogenic processes and quality of life in a sample of non-clinical panickers and age and sex matched non-panicking controls☆
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A comparative evaluation of panicogenic processes and quality of life in a sample of non-clinical panickers and age and sex matched non-panicking controls
Panic attacks are abrupt and highly aversive psychophysiological events that are distinguishable from anxiety (Barlow, 2002) and covary with wide-ranging behavioral impairment, poor quality of life, and psychological suffering (McNally, 1994; Mendlowicz & Stein, 2000; Rubin et al., 2000). Panic attacks are associated with increased risk for multiple types of psychopathology and frequently co-occur with all of the anxiety disorders (Barlow, 2002). Panic attacks are quite common in the general
Participants
A total of 381 undergraduate volunteers (179 females, Mage = 18.86 years, S.D. = 1.83, range = 17–27) recruited from a large University in the Northeastern United States received course credit for their participation. The majority of the participants were Caucasian (64.90%), 9.90% were African American, 9.70% were Hispanic, 8.10% were Asian American, and the remainder (6.56%) reported that they were either biracial or of a different ethnicity.
Measures
Panic Attack Questionnaire-Revised (PAQ-R; Cox, Norton, &
Descriptive analyses
All panickers, by definition, reported at least one panic attack in the last year (M = 3.88, S.D. = 2.89; range 1–15). Also, 59.7% reported at least one panic attack in the last month (M = 1.12, S.D. = 1.67; range 0–10), and 25% reported having had a panic attack in the week prior to the assessment (M = 0.43, S.D. = 1.03; range 0–7). Panickers reported, on average, having had panic attacks for 3.43 years (S.D. = 3.83; range <1 month to 18.5 years), and 76% of them reported four or more of the DSM-IV panic
Discussion
The central aim of the present study was to further elucidate the nature and phenomenology of non-clinical panic, particularly with regard to conceptually-relevant psychological risk factors, individual difference variables, and quality of life impairments that are known to co-vary with panic disorder. A related aim was to evaluate the extent to which theoretically-relevant anxiety-related risk factors predict the frequency and severity of panic attacks; an approach that has implications for
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Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting (2000, November) of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, New Orleans, LA.