Does Personality Matter? Temperament and Character Dimensions in Panic Subtypes

Abstract

Introduction: Symptomatic heterogeneity in the clinical presentation of Panic Disorder (PD) has lead to several attempts to identify PD subtypes; however, no studies investigated the association between temperament and character dimensions and PD subtypes. The study was aimed to verify whether personality traits were differentially related to distinct symptom dimensions. Methods: Seventy-four patients with PD were assessed by the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.), and the Temperament and Character Inventory (T.C.I.). Thirteen panic symptoms from the M.I.N.I. were included in a factor analysis with varimax rotation. A correlation analysis (Pearson's correlation), a linear regression analysis, and a forward stepwise regression analysis between the identified factors and T.C.I. variables were performed for evaluating the association between panic subtypes and personality features. Results: Three factors were obtained: "Somato-dissociative", "Respiratory", and "Cardiologic" explaining respectively 18.31%, 13.71%, and 12.78% of the total variance. Correlations analyses showed that only "Somato-dissociative" factor was significantly correlated with T.C.I. "Self-directedness" (p<0.0001) and "Cooperativeness" (p=0.009) variables. Results from the regression analysis indicate that the predictor models account for 33.3% and 24.7% of the total variance respectively in "Somatic-dissociative" (p<0.0001) and "Cardiologic" (p=0.007) factors, while they do not show statistically significant effects on "Respiratory" factor (p=0.222). After performing stepwise regression analysis, "Selfdirectedness" resulted the unique predictor of "Somato-dissociative" factor (R²=0.186; β=-0.432; t=-4.061; p<0.0001). Conclusion: Current results, although preliminary, suggest the importance of assessing personality and temperament features that may be potentially related to poor treatment response for a better understanding and characterization of PD subtypes.

Dissociative symptoms in generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder and its relationship with temperament-character features

“…25 In a study nvest gat ng the relat onsh p between PD subtypes and temperament and character d mens ons, Somato-d ssoc at ve subtype was found to show negat ve correlat on w th SD. 26 e research was started a er gett ng approval from the local eth cs comm ttee.…”

Panic disorder respiratory subtype: psychopathology and challenge tests – an update

“…The cardiorespiratory cluster, which included the signs and symptoms palpitations, fear of dying, chest pain, paresthesia, trembling, and dyspnea, was the most representative one (26.1% variance). 47 In two other studies, 48,49 the symptoms of dyspnea and choking were grouped together in a respiratory cluster. However, in both studies, this subtype accounted for a lower percentage of variance than the other clusters.…”

“…However, in both studies, this subtype accounted for a lower percentage of variance than the other clusters. 48,49 In an exploratory analysis factor with 343 PD patients, each of the 13 symptoms that can occur during a PA was rated on a qualitative scale of 0 to 8 (absent to very severe). Based on the scores of these symptoms, three subtypes could be discriminated: cardiorespiratory, autonomic/somatic, and cognitive (18.8, 6.4, and 3.8% of variance, respectively).…”

“…Shortness of breath and choking were the main symptoms representing the respiratory factor. 52 Indeed, these symptoms were included in the respiratory cluster in all studies, 5,7,[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52] except that of Segui et al 47 Table 1 shows the main findings related to the aforementioned studies, while Table 2 lists the sign-and-symptom profile of the cluster most representative of respiratory-related symptoms.…”

“…However, in both studies, this subtype accounted for a lower percentage of variance than the other clusters. 48 , 49 …”