Empirical evidence of the effect of personality pathology on the outcome of panic disorder

Background: Treatment resistant disorders are a significant clinical problem. Impediments to good outcome need to be identified and addressed. Personality pathology has been hypothesized to be one such factor in panic disorder. There is no consensus as to the effects of personality pathology on the outcome of panic disorder. This study examined empirical evidence. The hypothesis was that personality pathology would cause poorer outcome of panic disorder.

Methods: A literature search was conducted that winnowed 2627 articles down to 27 based on 1) longitudinal design; 2) validated measures of personality; 3) validated outcome measures; and 4) the presence of effect size or data to calculate effect size. All effect sizes were translated into odds ratios (ORs) for ease of comparison.

Results: An overall median OR of 2.7 was found, indicating personality pathology negatively affected outcome. This finding persisted even when adjusted for baseline severity of illness. The effects were found for both clinical outcomes (OR = 2.7) and for social adjustment (OR = 2.9). There was a tendency for more dropouts in the personality pathology group. More highly structured drug therapy regimens and highly structured psychotherapy seemed to partially mitigate this outcome.

Conclusion: The negative effect of personality pathology was confirmed in well-designed longitudinal studies. This was not related to initial clinical severity. Clinical implications are that patients with personality pathology require the therapist to stick more closely to treatment protocols and to mitigate the tendency of these patients to drop out of treatment.