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Association between personality traits and Escitalopram treatment efficacy in panic disorder

2017; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 71; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/08039488.2017.1316772

1502-4725

Ülle Võhma, Mait Raag, Innar Tõru, Anu Aluoja, Eduard Maron,

Mental Health Research Topics

Background: There is strong evidence to suggest that personality factors may interact with the development and clinical expression of panic disorder (PD). A greater understanding of these relationships may have important implications for clinical practice and implications for searching reliable predictors of treatment outcome.Aims: The study aimed to examine the effect of escitalopram treatment on personality traits in PD patients, and to identify whether the treatment outcome could be predicted by any personality trait.Method: A study sample consisting of 110 outpatients with PD treated with 10–20 mg/day of escitalopram for 12 weeks. The personality traits were evaluated before and after 12 weeks of medication by using the Swedish universities Scales of Personality (SSP).Results: Although almost all personality traits on the SSP measurement were improved after 12 weeks of medication in comparison with the baseline scores, none of these changes reached a statistically significant level. Only higher impulsivity at baseline SSP predicted non-remission to 12-weeks treatment with escitalopram; however, this association did not withstand the Bonferroni correction in multiple comparisons.Limitations: All patients were treated in a naturalistic way using an open-label drug, so placebo responses cannot be excluded. The sample size can still be considered not large enough to reveal statistically significant findings.Conclusions: Maladaptive personality disposition in patients with PD seems to have a trait character and shows little trend toward normalization after 12-weeks treatment with the antidepressant, while the association between impulsivity and treatment response needs further investigation.