Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Psychiatry Research Journal, cilt.3, ss.71-80, 2012 (Scopus)
Schizophrenia, as a disabling disorder generally with an early age of onset, is characterized by symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, disorganized communication, poor planning, reduced motivation, and blunted affect. While the incidence of the disorder is relatively low, the condition is one of the major contributors to the global burden of disease. Psychiatric comorbidities are common among patients with schizophrenia and this could be one of the reasons of global burden. Anxiety disorders are also very common throughout the course of disorder. There is an increased prevalence of panic attack (PA) and panic disorder (PD) among patients with schizophrenia compared with the general population. Although lifetime prevalence rates for PA without agoraphobia (AG) have been reported to be 6.5%-22.7%, 0.85% for PA with AG without PD and 0.4%-3.7% for PD without AG in the general population; comorbid PA in schizophrenia was reported to be 7.1%-63% and 3.3%-29.5% for PD. In a recent study Buckley et al. (2009) has estimated weighted average prevalence of PA and PD in patients with schizophrenia using data of 27 published studies. The majority of these studies focused on outpatients with chronic schizophrenia, five of the studies analyzed the data coming from Epidemiologic Catchment Area survey and two studies investigated the prevalence of panic attacks/disorder in patients with first-episode psychosis. In this study, Buckley et al. found the prevalence of panic attacks 25% and panic disorder 15%. PA is associated with significant functional impairment, risk of psychiatric comorbidity and suicidal ideation and behavior both when they occur alone and when they co-occur with other psychiatric disorders. It has been reported that suicidal ideation and substance abuse were related to PA in patients with schizophrenia. Also schizophrenic patients with PA demonstrate more severe depressive symptoms than patients without. Sociodemographic variables like age, sex, education years and duration of illness are similar between schizophrenic patients who suffered from PA and those who did not. Also comorbid PA has a negative impact on quality of life among patients with schizophrenia. © Nova Science Publishers, Inc.