Parental Representations of Patients with Panic Disorder and Generalised Anxiety Disorder

Abstract

Previous studies using the Parental Bonding Instrument have shown a general trend for neurotic subjects to score their parents as less caring and more protective. Such a finding was broadly replicated in a study of 80 clinically anxious subjects and age- and sex-matched controls. Although direct comparisons of PBI scores failed to reveal clear-cut differences between generalised anxiety (GA) and panic disorder (PD) subgroups, logistic regression analyses revealed higher odds ratios for parental assignment to aberrant categories in the GA group, with PD patients reporting a more limited pattern of overprotective parenting only. Our findings suggest that adverse parental behaviour may be relevant to the pathogenesis of GA, while parental ‘affectionate constraint’ may be a parental response to early manifestations of PD.