Temperament and personality features in panic disorder with or without comorbid mood disorders

Personality and temperament features, assessed with the Structured Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorders - Revised (SIDP-R) and the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ), respectively, were evaluated in 62 patients affected by panic disorder with (PD+MD) (n=22) or without comorbid mood disorder (PD) (n=40). A significant difference in the prevalence of personality disorders (PD+MD, 86% vs. PD, 62%; P<0.05), particularly dependent (PD+DM, 50% vs. PD, 17%; P<0.01) and borderline (PD+DM, 9% vs. PD, 0%; P=0.05) personality disorders, was observed between the groups. Moreover, patients in the PD+MD group had higher scores for harm avoidance (PD+MD, 22.2+/-5.6 vs. PD, 26.9+/-5.1; P<0.05) than patients in the PD group. The harm avoidance score in PD patients was significantly related to personality disorder and not to MD, suggesting that harm avoidance is not associated with greater severity of the illness. Our data confirm the hypothesis that subjects with higher harm avoidance scores have a greater probability of being affected by cluster C personality disorders and comorbid mood and anxiety disorders.