An acute intense attack of anxiety accompanied by feelings of impending doom is known as panic disorder. The anxiety is characterized by discrete periods of intense fear that can vary from several attacks during one day to only a few attacks during a year. A panic attack is a sudden period of intense fear or apprehension that may last from minutes to hours.
Panic attacks can occur in mental disorders other than panic disorder, particularly in specific phobia, social phobia, and PTSD. Some panic attacks are unexpected; they occur at any time and are not associated with any identifiable situational stimulus.
However, some attacks are expected and are cued to a recognized or specific stimulus. For instance, people who suffer from social anxiety, specific phobias. Some panic attacks do not fit easily into the distinction between unexpected and expected and may or may not occur when a patient is exposed to a specific trigger, or they may occur either immediately after exposure or after a considerable delay.
According to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), as panic attacks can occur in other mental health conditions rather than panic disorder, frequency of panic attacks are important diagnostic criteria; that is to say frequent panic attacks should be followed by
- persistent concern or worry about future possible panic attacks and
- significant maladaptive change in behavior related to potential panic attacks (for example behaviors in attempt to avoid panic attacks) (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 2013; Kaplan and Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry, 2015).