Cigarette Smoking and Panic

ABSTRACT—The present paper summarizes empirical evi-dence suggesting that smoking and panic problems often co-occur; that smoking is a risk factor for, andmay serve to maintain, panic attacks and panic disorder; and that premorbid panic-specific vulnerability variables and full-blown panic problems are related to coping-oriented smok-ing motives and perhaps to the maintenance of smoking behavior. An integrative model is offered to stimulate fur-ther work on this topic, followed by future directions for research. KEYWORDS—panic disorder; panic attacks; agoraphobia; smoking; anxiety Research on smoking and anxiety disorders has helped identify that clinically significant interplay exists between certain types of drug behavior and anxiety conditions. This work has bee