Panic Disorder in Primary Care: Patients' Attributions of Illness Causes and Willingness to Accept Psychiatric Treatment

Objective:This study assessed the causes that primary care patients with panic disorder (PD) attribute to their panic symptoms, and their acceptance of various psychiatric treatment options.Methods:In a cross-sectional assessment of 306 patients treated at two primary care clinics, 42 met criteria for DSM-IV PD in the past year. The authors classified these 42 PD-positive patients to one of two groups: those receiving both primary and specialty mental health care (PC+MH; n = 19) and those receiving only primary care (PC-only; n = 23). Patients rated the probability of four possible causes of their panic symptoms, and level of acceptability of three psychiatric and two medical treatments for PD. To place primary care patients' ratings into a broader context, a third contrast group of PD-positive patients, recruited from clinical trials of investigational PD pharmacotherapies (n = 31), also rated causes and treatment acceptability.Results:Participants of the three treatment groups attributed psychiatric cau...