Reported Early Separation Anxiety Symptoms in Patients with Panic and Generalised Anxiety Disorders

Attachment theory has proposed that early separation anxiety is a risk factor for adult anxiety disorder, with the recent focus being particularly on panic disorder. The results of empirical studies examining this link are, however, contradictory, possibly because of inconsistencies across studies in measuring memories of early separation anxiety. In the present study, a psychometrically sound measure, the Separation Anxiety Symptom Inventory (SASI) was used to compare memories of such early symptoms in panic disorder (including those with mild phobic-avoidance), generalised anxiety disorder and control subjects. Anxiety patients as a group returned higher SASI scores (p<0.001) with a non-significant trend for panic disorder patients to score higher than those with generalised anxiety. These results suggest that early separation anxiety may be a harbinger of adult anxiety and that risk of panic disorder may be higher in the most severely affected youngsters. As a risk factor, early separation anxiety does not however appear to be uniquely related to adult panic disorder.

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