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Panic Disorder Patients and Their Medical Care

Received February 27, 1997; revised April 27, 1998; accepted May 8, 1998. From the Divisions of Psychiatry and Clinical Epidemiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital; the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; and the Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Barsky, Division of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115.

The goal of the study was to examine the functional status and medical care of general medical outpatients with panic disorder. One hundred patients completed self-report questionnaires and a diagnostic interview for panic disorder. They were compared with a random sample of patients without panic disorder. Medical morbidity was assessed from the medical record, and the patients' clinic physicians completed a questionnaire about them. The prevalence of current (1 month) panic disorder was 6.7%–8.3%. The panic disorder patients had fewer serious medical diagnoses, but more medical utilization and more role impairment than the comparison group. The clinic physicians rated the panic patients as more anxious, more depressed, more hypochondriacal, and more difficult to care for. Sixty-one percent of the panic disorder patients recalled receiving an anxiety disorder diagnosis. These findings add to a growing body of evidence that panic disorder imposes a significant burden on those with this illness and that it is a seriously underdiagnosed condition in primary care practice.

Key Words: Panic Disorder • Medical Outpatients • Functional Status

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