Does Personality Matter? Temperament and Character Dimensions in Panic Subtypes

• Published in: Noro-Psikiyatri Arsivi Vol. 55; no. 4; pp. 325 - 329
• Main Authors: Bruno, Antonio, Muscatello, Maria Rosaria Anna, Pandolfo, Gianluca, Ciura, Giulia La, Quattrone, Diego, Scimeca, Giuseppe, Mento, Carmela, Zoccali, Rocco A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Turkey AVES 01.12.2018; BAYT Ltd. Co; Noro-Psikiyatri Arsivi
• Subjects: Anxiety; Care and treatment; Comorbidity; Health aspects; Identification and classification; Mental depression; Mental disorders; Panic attacks; Panic disorder; Personality (Psychology); Personality disorders; Personality traits; Psychiatry; Psychobiology; Psychological aspects; Studies; Temperament; New York; United States > US; character; personality; panic dimensions; Panic disorder; temperament
• ISSN: 1300-0667; 1309-4866
• DOI: 10.5152/npa.2017.20576

Symptomatic heterogeneity in the clinical presentation of Panic Disorder (PD) has lead to several attempts to identify PD subtypes; however, no studies investigated the association between temperament and character dimensions and PD subtypes. The study was aimed to verify whether personality traits were differentially related to distinct symptom dimensions. Seventy-four patients with PD were assessed by the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.), and the Temperament and Character Inventory (T.C.I.). Thirteen panic symptoms from the M.I.N.I. were included in a factor analysis with varimax rotation. A correlation analysis (Pearson's correlation), a linear regression analysis, and a forward stepwise regression analysis between the identified factors and T.C.I. variables were performed for evaluating the association between panic subtypes and personality features. Three factors were obtained: "Somato-dissociative", "Respiratory", and "Cardiologic" explaining respectively 18.31%, 13.71%, and 12.78% of the total variance. Correlations analyses showed that only "Somato-dissociative" factor was significantly correlated with T.C.I. "Self-directedness" (p<0.0001) and "Cooperativeness" (p=0.009) variables. Results from the regression analysis indicate that the predictor models account for 33.3% and 24.7% of the total variance respectively in "Somatic-dissociative" (p<0.0001) and "Cardiologic" (p=0.007) factors, while they do not show statistically significant effects on "Respiratory" factor (p=0.222). After performing stepwise regression analysis, "Self-directedness" resulted the unique predictor of "Somato-dissociative" factor (R²=0.186; β=-0.432; t=-4.061; p<0.0001). Current results, although preliminary, suggest the importance of assessing personality and temperament features that may be potentially related to poor treatment response for a better understanding and characterization of PD subtypes.