Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T12:01:25.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Respiratory Control: Its Contribution to the Treatment of Panic Attacks

A Controlled Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

George A. Hibbert  and
Michael Chan
George A. Hibbert
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford
Michael Chan
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Patients who experienced panic attacks, with or without avoidance, were treated for two weeks with either training in controlled breathing or a placebo treatment. Subsequently, both groups received a limited period of conventional anxiety treatments, most commonly in vivo exposure. Patients were subdivided into ‘hyperventilators' and ‘non-hyperventilators' on the basis of the conventional provocation test. Observer ratings of anxiety showed a greater improvement for the group that received breathing training, but there was no evidence that ‘hyperventilators' benefited more from respiratory training than ‘non-hyperventilators'. Self-report measures of anxiety, avoidance, and depression/dysphoria showed no difference between treatments. These findings suggest that training in controlled breathing is not of specific benefit for those identified as ‘hyperventilators' by the provocation test, but that it may have a non-specific effect in the treatment of patients with panic attacks.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 154 , Issue 2 , February 1989 , pp. 232 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1989 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beck, A. T. & Beamsderfer, A. (1974) Assessment of depression: the depression inventory. In Modern Problems in Pharmacopsychiatry, 7, (ed. Pichot, P.), pp. 180–194. Basel, Switzerland: Karger.Google Scholar
Beck, A. T., Laude, R. & Bohnert, M. (1974) Ideational components of anxiety neurosis. Archives of General Psychiatry, 31, 319–325.Google Scholar
Bonn, J. A., Readhead, C. P. A. & Timmons, B. H. (1984) Enhanced adaptive behavioural response in agoraphobic patients pretreated with breathing retraining. Lancet, ii, 665–669.Google Scholar
Brena, S. F. (1971) Yoga and Medicine. New York: Julian Press.Google Scholar
Cappo, B. M. & Holmes, D. S. (1984) The utility of prolonged respiratory exhalation for reducing physiological and psychological arousal in non-threatening and threatening situations. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 28, 265–273.Google Scholar
Clark, D. M. (1979) Therapeutic Aspects of Increasing pC02 by Behavioural Means. M. Phil, thesis, University of London.Google Scholar
Clark, D. M. & Hemsley, D. R. (1982) Effects of hyperventilation: individual variability and its relation to personality. Journal of Behaviour Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 13, 41–47.Google Scholar
Clark, D. M., Salkovskis, P. M. & Chalkley, A. J. (1985) Respiratory control as a treatment for panic attacks. Journal of Behaviour Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 16, 23–30.Google Scholar
Compernolle, T., Hoogduin, K. & Joele, L. (1979) Diagnosis and treatment of the hyperventilation syndrome. Psychosomatics, 19, 612–625.Google Scholar
Dixon, W. J., Brown, M. B., Engelman, L., et al (1981) BMDP Statistical Software. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Doorn, P. V., Foloering, H. & Colla, P. (1982) Control of the end-tidal CO2 in the hyperventilation syndrome: effects of biofeedback and breathing instruction compared. Bulletin Européen de Physiopathologie Respiratoire, 18, 829–836.Google Scholar
Garssen, B., Van Veenendaal, W. & Bloemink, R. (1983) Agoraphobia and the hyperventilation syndrome. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 21, 643–649.Google Scholar
Grossman, P., de Swart, J. C. G. & Defares, P. B. (1985) A controlled study of a breathing therapy for treatment of hyperventilation syndrome. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 29, 49–58.Google Scholar
Hamilton, M. (1959) The assessment of anxiety states by rating. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 32, 50–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hibbert, G. A. (1984) Ideational components of anxiety: their origin and content. British Journal of Psychiatry, 144, 618–624.Google Scholar
Kerr, W. J., Dalton, J. W. & Gliebe, P. A. (1937) Some physical phenomena associated with anxiety states and their relation to hyperventilation. Annals of Internal Medicine, 11, 961–992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, B. I. (1954) Chronic hyperventilation syndrome. Journal of the American Medical Association, 31 July, 1204 1208.Google Scholar
Lewis, B. I. (1959) Hyperventilation syndrome: a clinical and physiological evaluation. California Medicine, 91, 121–126.Google Scholar
Lum, L. C. (1976) The syndrome of habitual chronic hyperventilation. In Modern Trends in Psychosomatic Medicine, vol. 3 (ed. Hill, O. W.), pp. 196–200. London: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Lewis, B. I. (1981) Hyperventilation and anxiety state. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 74, 1–4.Google Scholar
Lewis, B. I. (1983) Physiological consideration in the treatment of hyperventilation syndromes. Journal of Drug Research, 8, 1867–1872.Google Scholar
Marks, I. M. & Mathews, A. (1979) Brief standard self-rating for phobic patients. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 17, 263–267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCaul, K., Solomon, S. & Holmes, D. S. (1979) Effects of slowed respiration and expectations on physiological and psychological responses to threat. Journal of Personal and Social Psychology, 37, 564–571.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Michaels, R. R., Huber, M. J. & McCann, D. S. (1976) Evaluation of transcendental meditations as a method of reducing stress. Science, 192, 1242–1244.Google Scholar
Salkovskis, P. M., Jones, D. R. O. & Clark, D. M. (1986) Respiratory control in the treatment of panic attacks: replication and extension with concurrent measurement of behaviour and pCO2 British Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 526–532.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.