Association of Panic Disorder With a History of Traumatic Suffocation

OBJECTIVE: An important recent hypothesis suggests that panic disorder results from a false suffocation alarm. However, the association of panic disorder with a history of traumatic suffocation experiences (e.g., near-drowning and near-choking) has not been well studied. This study examined whether a history of traumatic suffocation might be more common in patients with panic disorder who have predominantly respiratory symptoms. METHOD: Patients with panic disorder (N=176) and psychiatric comparison subjects (N=60) were questioned about a history of traumatic suffocation experiences. The panic disorder patients were classified as having predominantly respiratory, cardiovascular, occulovestibular, or gastrointestinal symptoms in order to determine a possible association between traumatic suffocation and symptom subtype. RESULTS: The frequency of traumatic suffocation was significantly higher among the panic disorder patients (19.3%) than among the comparison subjects (6.7%). Within the panic disorder group, patients with a history of traumatic suffocation were significantly more likely to exhibit predominantly respiratory symptoms and nocturnal panic attacks, while patients without such a history were significantly more likely to have predominantly cardiovascular symptoms, occulovestibular symptoms, and agoraphobia. CONCLUSIONS: There may be a specific association between panic disorder and a history of traumatic suffocation, and such a history in turn appears associated with predominantly respiratory symptoms and nocturnal panic attacks. Although additional studies are needed to confirm these data, a history of traumatic suffocation might be hypothesized to play a role in the etiology of panic disorder in some patients and may provide a useful window on understanding the psychobiology of this disorder. (Am J Psychiatry 1997; 154:1566–1570)