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Evaluation of Effectiveness of Panic Anxiety Management Program - Part2

RESULTS
Decrease of Symptoms

Analysis of the data reflects a marked decrease in the severity of the symptoms experienced by the Effectiveness Study participants.
Table 4. shows the t tests of initial and 3 month follow up for all the subjects.

Of the participants that reported some degree of severity of the major Anxiety Disorder fears at the Initial contact there is a significant decrease in severity of those fears at the 3 month follow up: feeling that you will have a heart attack, feeling that you will die, feeling that you will go insane, feeling that you will pass out (df = 163, 2 tail sig= 0.000, P<0.01), feeling that you will have an attack of diarrhoea (df=163, 2 tail sig= 0.005, P<0.01), feeling that you will hurt yourself or someone else (df = 163, 2 tail sig=0.001, P<0.01). Only the major Anxiety Disorder fear of feeling that you will vomit had no significant decrease. Of the participants that reported some degree of severity of the Panic Attack descriptors at the Initial contact there is a significant decrease in severity of panic attack energy experienced at the 3 month follow up: electric current/ vibration moving through the body (t=3.68, df=163, 2 tail sig=0.000), unusual intense flows of energy throughout the body (t=5.45, df=163, 2 tail sig=0.000), intense heat/ burning pain moving though the body (t=3.68, df = 163, 2 tail sig = 0.000), wavelike energy moving through the body (t=4.49, df = 163, 2 tail sig=0.000), hot prickly sensation moving through the body (t=3.03, df = 163, 2 tail sig=0.003). Of the participants that reported some degree of severity of the Dissociative symptoms at the Initial contact there is a significant decrease in severity of dissociative symptoms at the 3 month follow up: feeling detached from the body - either feeling as if you are alongside, above or behind it (t=2.67, df=163, 2 tail sig=0.008), feeling as if you are floating (t=3.06, df=163, 2 tail sig=0.003), feel surroundings do not seem real (t=4.18, df = 163, 2 tail sig = 0.000), visual distortions /stationary objects appear to move (t=3.74, df=163, 2 tail sig=0.000), feeling as if you are falling into a void (t=3.07, df = 163, 2 tail sig = 0.003). The dissociative symptoms of eyes burning and over sensitive hearing showed a trend toward significant decrease in severity. Only the Dissociative symptoms of experiencing your surroundings as through a fog or mist and over sensitivity to colours had no significant decrease.
Of the participants that reported some degree of severity of the Anxiety Disorder symptoms at the Initial contact there is a significant decrease in severity of symptoms at the 3 month follow up (P<0.01): heart palpitations, missed heartbeats, chest pain, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, tightening of the throat, nausea, shaking/trembling, pins and needles, hot flashes, headaches, neckache, numbness of hands/feet, loss of appetite, extreme exhaustion, loss of concentration, feeling faint, feeling dizzy. A trend towards significant decrease in severity of the following symptoms were reported at the 3 month follow up (P<0.1): choking sensation and lower back pain Only the symptoms burning sensation in the stomach, vomiting, cold flashes, pelvic pain and temporary paralysis had no significant decrease.

Effectiveness of Various Therapies Tried

Table 5. shows the subjective effectiveness of therapies tried by Effectiveness study participants before they attended the Panic Anxiety Management Workshop.

Table 5. Evaluation of different therapies tried by Effectiveness Study participants before attending the Panic Anxiety Management Program.

Therapy	Not tried	Very helpful	Fairly helpful	Slightly helpful	Unhelpful
Hypnotherapy	83.1%	1.5%	3%	3.4%	9%
Psychotherapy	83.9%	2.2%	5.2%	5.6%	3%
Behaviour therapy	85.6%	3%	4.9%	3.4%	3%
Counselling	55.4%	12%	15.7%	9.7%	7.1%
Clinical psychologist	64%	8.6%	12.4%	9%	6%
Psychiatrist	44.6%	10.1%	14.6%	15.7%	15%
Medication	37.8%	20.2%	21.7%	10.5%	9.7%
Acupuncture	81.6%	2.6%	6%	4.9%	4.9%
Meditation	61.8%	16.9%	12.7%	7.9%	0.7%

Other therapies tried were: reading, self learning about anxiety, exercise, change of diet, Reiki, Chiropractic, relaxation each day, self help groups, Step programmes, Naturopath, Homeopath, Vitamins, GP, Primal therapy, Cognitive therapy, Alcoholics Anonymous, natural remedies, Agoraphobia clinic, Kinergy and Bush flower essences, Self Hypnosis tapes, Autogenic training and Buddhism. There are no figures available on their effectiveness.
The helpfulness of the Panic Anxiety Management Workshop is shown in Table 6.

Effectiveness of Panic Anxiety Management Program	Effectiveness study participants
Very helpful	85.1%
Fairly helpful	11.9%
Slightly helpful	2.7%
Unhelpful	0.4%

CONCLUSION

The Panic Anxiety Management Workshop is very effective in terms of reduction of severity of Anxiety Disorder symptoms - therefore the overall severity of the Anxiety Disorder itself. The assessment of the Workshop itself was considered overwhelming as very helpful by the participants.

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