This study was performed to examine personailty characteristics in patients with panic disorder and to assess the links between personailty characteristics and duration, frequency, and severity of panic symptoms.

Thirty-six patients meeting DSM-IV criteria for panic disorder(patient group) and thirty-six normal controls were assessed by the PDQ-R and EPQ.

1) Panic parients were more likley to show avoidant(p<0.05), obsessive-compulsive(p<0.01), histrionic(p<0.01), borderline(p<0.001) and paranoid(p<0.05) personality scales than controls. The scores of total PDQ-R(p<0.01), cluster B(p<0.001) and cluster C(p<0.01) personality disorder and traits in panic patients were significantly higher than controls.

2) Panic patients showed significantly higher scores than controls on the EPQ factors of N(p<0.01) and significantly lower scores than controls on the EPQ factors of E(p<0.05).

3) The frequency of panic attack and severity of panic symptoms in panic patients were sinificantly correlated with cluster A personality disorder(p<0.05) and schizotypal personaity disorder(p<0.01), respectively.

The above results revealed that panic patients were more avoidant, obsessive-compulsive, histrionic, borderline, and paranoid than controls. The author also noted that panic patients were more introverted and neurotic than controls. Some clinical features of panic support the previous findings that where was a possible kink between panic disorder and personality disorder.

Neuoleptic induced akathisia is an unsual state of subjective feeling of tension to move and objective motor restlessness, so frequently results in non-compliance. Several studies have suggested that akathisia is associated with low serum iron but there is no general agreement nowadays. Author investigated whether akathisic patients had lower indices of serum iron status than matched non-akathisic controls by 2 weeks-prospective study.

The subjects were 30 inpatients who were receiving antimycotic medication. Akathisia severity was measured by Chouinard rating scale, then 15 akathisic patients were matched with 15 non-akathisic controls for age, sex, length of illness, duration of treatment, the highest dosage of natipsychotic medication, and use of antiparkinsonian agents. The frequency of acute dystonia and AIMS for other extrapyramidal side effects were examed, also. Venous blood samples of all subjects were analysed for serum Fe, ferritin, TIBC on the 1st, 7th, and 14th medication day.

Sociodemographic factors, such as, sex, mean age, and clinical characteristics such as, length of illness, duration of treatment, the kinds and mean dosage of neuroleptics, were not different between the akathisia and the control group(p>0.05). The akathisic patients had significantly lower level of serum Fe than the control on 14th day(p<0.05), but no significant decrease during the 2 weeks follow-up(p>0.05). The frequency of acute dystonia, and anticholinergic medication were not different between the two groups(p>0.05), but AIMS score was significantly higher in the akathisia group(p<0.05).

Neuroleptic induced akathisia may be related to the low serum Fe. So, this study supports that low serum iron, via dopamine(D2) receptor hypofunction, increases the susceptibility to akathisia on antipsychotic medication.