Temporal relationship between panic attack onset and phobic avoidance in agoraphobia.

In a sample of 28 members of an agoraphobia self-help group, each patient reported a history of spontaneous panic attacks. The onset of panic attacks preceded the development of agoraphobic restrictions by an average of9 yr. and 79:, of the sample attributed the development of their agoraphobia to their experience of panics. These results provide the first empirical support for the hypothesis that agoraphobia is secondary to panic attacks.