Biobehavioral approach to distinguishing panic symptoms from medical illness

Summary & key facts

This narrative review examines how panic disorder causes sudden, distressing body symptoms that can look like real medical problems. It focuses on six common symptoms (non-cardiac chest pain, palpitations, dyspnea, dizziness, abdominal distress, and paresthesia), reviews medical illnesses that can occur with or mimic panic (including long COVID), and argues for a biobehavioral approach that combines psychological and medical knowledge to help clinicians tell benign panic symptoms from medically important ones and avoid costly or prolonged care.

Key facts:

• Panic disorder produces acute, distressing somatic symptoms that can mimic medically relevant conditions.
• The review identifies six common panic-related symptoms: non-cardiac chest pain, palpitations, dyspnea (shortness of breath), dizziness, abdominal distress, and paresthesia (tingling or numbness).
• The authors say individuals with panic disorder often overuse personal and healthcare resources while trying to diagnose or treat symptoms that are often medically benign.
• The review examines somatic illnesses that are commonly comorbid with or can produce panic-like symptoms, and it explicitly includes long COVID among these conditions.
• The paper reviews risk factors, symptom characteristics that help distinguish panic from medical illness, and typical treatment approaches for the medical conditions discussed.
• The authors recommend a biobehavioral perspective—integrating psychological and medical knowledge—and note that cultural factors are important when clinicians try to tell benign panic symptoms apart from medically relevant ones.

Abstract

Panic disorder is a common psychiatric diagnosis characterized by acute, distressing somatic symptoms that mimic medically-relevant symptoms. As a result, in...

Topics

Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes Long-Term Effects of COVID-19 Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments

Categories

Health Sciences Medicine Psychiatry and Mental health

Tags

Anxiety Clinical psychology Distress Intensive care medicine Medicine Palpitations Panic Panic disorder Psychiatry