The relationship between panic attacks and chemical dependencies

The purposes of the present study were to (a) determine the prevalence and characteristics of panic attacks in an alcohol/drug abuse inpatient population, (b) compare patients who reported experiencing panic attacks to patients who have never experienced a panic attack on various self-report measures of psychopathology and on ratings completed by Caregivers, and (c) to examine differences within groups of panickers. One hundred forty-four patients completed the questionnaires over a 17 week period. Over 50% of the patients reported experiencing one or more attacks in the three weeks prior to testing. These panickers scored higher than non-panickers on various measures of psychopathology. Over 83% of panickers reported using alcohol to self-medicate their panic attacks with almost 72% of them believing this procedure to be effective for preventing or reducing panic attacks. Male panickers differed from female panickers on several measures as did panickers who reported their panic attacks began before the alcohol abuse compared to those who did not believe this. The mean history of panic attacks was 103.4 months while the mean history of alcohol abuse was 134.6 months.