Panic disorders in randomized controlled trials versus routine clinical practice: Are participants representative patients?

Because treatment efficacy may be moderated by demographic and diagnostic profile, the degree to which findings from controlled clinical research studies of panic disorder (PD) generalize to routine clinical practice may depend on how closely research participants resemble patients seeking treatment in the community. The present study compared characteristics of patients with PD in ambulatory treatment (sampled via the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey) to characteristics of research participants with PD (extracted from published reports of PD treatment studies). Community patients were older and had higher rates of psychiatric comorbidity, whereas research participants had higher rates of agoraphobia. There were no significant differences in race or gender for the two groups. Comparisons were restricted by limited demographic and diagnostic information in published research reports. More information on potential differences between research participants and community patient populations is needed in order to inform assessments of the generalizability of research findings.