title: Alexithymia and suicidality in panic disorder.
abstract: To evaluate the prevalence of suicidal behavior in patients with panic disorder (PD) and to study the role of alexithymia (AL), an affect component, as a predictor of suicidal behavior in PD, we compared 42 patients with PD with or without agoraphobia with 24 healthy controls with regards to depression, AL and suicide risk. Only 5% of the PD patients reported previous suicide attempts. A higher frequency of positive AL (score > 73) was found among the PD patients (39% v 4% among the controls). PD patients had a higher suicide risk and AL as compared to controls, but only the increased suicide risk reached statistical significance. AL subjects had higher suicide risk scores as compared to non-AL subjects. Significant correlations were found between the AL score and suicide risk, although the most significant correlation was, as expected, between the depression level and the suicide risk. A low rate of previous suicide attempts was found in the PD group, perhaps reflecting the low comorbidity in our sample. We suggest that AL may have a role in the causation of suicidal behavior in PD patients, although further studies should re-examine this issue with larger samples.
authors.affiliation: Anxiety Disorders Clinic, Psychiatric Department B, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Iancu
authors.forename: P N
authors.initials: PN
authors.lastname: Dannon
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Poreh
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lepkifker
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Grunhaus
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D015995:Prevalence; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012306:Risk; D012494:Sampling Studies; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires