Differences in the size of personal space between persons with anxious and persons with psychotic disorders

Personal space is the area individuals maintain around themselves into which others cannot intrude without arousing discomfort. The purpose of this study was to establish whether patients with anxiety disorder and patients with psychotic disorder differ in personal space preferences according to experimenter sex.

82 patients who met the ICD- criteria for psychotic and anxiety disorder participated in the study. Personal space was assessed using stop-distance method in which all subjects were approached by female and male experimenter from four directions.

Personal space zone was significantly larger in the patients with anxiety disorder than in the patients with psychotic disorder.

The results of this research can be seen as possible tendencies, rather than firm indications; it is necessary to make a further research, on a larger sample, of different aspects of psychotic and anxiety patients' personal spaces in a quest for the significances in their behavior in space.