Expectancy of panic in the maintenance of daily anxiety in panic disorder with agoraphobia: A longitudinal test of competing models

Although panic expectancy and the experience of anxiety are clearly related, their causal relationship remains unclear. A series of autoregressive latent trajectory models was used to evaluate the relationship between the highest level of daily anxiety and panic expectancy over time. Participants (N = 45) who met criteria for panic disorder with agoraphobia filled out daily diary measures over a 10-day period. It was hypothesized that expectation of panic (measured in the morning) would be primarily responsible for the maintenance of daily anxiety (measured in the evening). Daily anxiety was found to be influenced by a traitlike anxiety component, anxiety from the previous day, and morning expectation of panic. Panic expectancy was found to be influenced by a traitlike expectancy component, but not by the previous day's anxiety. Limitations of the model and future applications are discussed.