THE EFFECT OF PERSONALITY-DISORDERS AND ANXIOUS-DEPRESSIVE COMORBIDITY ON OUTCOME IN PATIENTS WITH UNIPOLAR DEPRESSION AND WITH PANIC DISORDER AND AGORAPHOBIA

A sample of depressed and/or anxious inpatients were administered the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Axis I and II diagnoses. Measures of symptoms were obtained at hospital admission, at discharge, and at 1-year follow-up. In a subsample of 77 patients with unipolar depression who received psychodynamically oriented treatment, paranoid and dependent PD were related to poorer outcome immediately after treatment. Avoidant PD was negatively related to improvement from posttreatinent to 1-year follow-up. The presence of anxiety in the depressed patients did not influence outcome. In a subsample of 36 patients with panic disorder and agoraphobia who received combined behavioral and psychodynamic treatment, neither PDs nor presence of unipolar depression predicted immediate outcome. However, avoidant PD was negatively related, whereas presence of unipolar depression was positively related to improvement from post-treatment to 1-year follow-up. These results suggest that it may be useful to address possible avoidant traits in the treatment of patients with depression and/or panic disorder with agoraphobia.