Citation

Iancu I, Dannon PN, Poreh A, Lepkifker E, Grunhaus L. Compr. Psychiatry 2001; 42(6): 477-481.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1053/comp.2001.27893

PMID

11704939

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.

Language: en

Keywords

Adult; Affective Symptoms; Analysis of Variance; Female; Humans; Male; Panic Disorder; Prevalence; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Risk; Sampling Studies; Suicide, Attempted; Surveys and Questionnaires