Separation Anxiety Disorder in Panic Disorder Patients with and without Comorbid Agoraphobia.

Objective: Previous studies have focused on the relationship between childhood separation anxiety disorder (SAD) and adult panic disorder (PD)-agoraphobia. It is not clear enough whether SAD, which continues into adulthood, is associated with PD with and without comorbid agoraphobia in adult patients. Our primary hypothesis was that PD patients with comorbid agoraphobia had a higher rate of SAD that continues into adulthood than those without agoraphobia. We also hypothesized that adulthood SAD symptoms were more likely to be associated with PD-agoraphobia than PD without agoraphobia.Method: 151 patients who were diagnosed with PD with (n = 106), and without comorbid agoraphobia (n = 45) were compared using Panic and Agoraphobia Scale, Structured Clinical Interview for Separation Anxiety Symptoms, Separation Anxiety Symptom Inventory, Adult Separation Anxiety Questionnaire, and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. We performed Student's t-test, Pearson correlation test, and multiple linear regression analysis in this study.Results: PD patients with comorbid agoraphobia were more likely to have SAD both in childhood and adulthood (p = .028), than those without agoraphobia. There were mild to moderate significant correlations between PD severity and state anxiety (p = .002), trait anxiety (p = .006), and SAD in childhood (p = .049), and in adulthood (p = .001). SAD in adulthood (ß = 0.278, Exp(B) = 0.136, p = .003), and state anxiety (ß = 0.236, Exp(B) = 0.164, p = .012) significantly predicted the severity of PD in patients with comorbid agoraphobia.Conclusion: SAD that continues in adulthood may be related to the severity of PD in patients with agoraphobia. Our findings might provide some evidence of the role of SAD in adulthood in patients with adult-onset PD-agoraphobia.

The subthreshold autistic traits in patients with adult-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder: a comparative study with adolescent patients.

OBJECTIVE: The primary objective of this study was to compare the adult-onset and adolescent obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients in terms of the subthreshold autistic traits. METHODS: 29 adolescent, and 45 adult-onset OCD patients were assessed by Autism-spectrum Quotient (AQ). RESULTS: The ratio of males to females, the frequency of ritualistic compulsions, and the mean number of lifetime compulsions were significantly higher in adolescents with OCD compared to adult-onset patients. Adult-onset OCD patients had significantly higher scores on total, social skills, attention shifting, and imagination subscales of AQ than adolescent OCD patients. The mean number of compulsions, attention shifting scores of AQ, and female gender significantly predicted the distinction between adolescent and adult-onset OCD patients. In adult-onset patients, there were significant correlations between the mean number of lifetime obsessions and total, social skills, attention switching, communication, and imagination subscale scores of AQ. CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that subthreshold autistic traits may play a significant role in the occurence of obsessive-complusive symptoms (OCS) in adult-onset OCD. Autistic traits seemed to be higher and had an closer relationship with the frequency of lifetime obsessions in AO-OCD patients than in adolescent patients.