▲ (from the left) Professor Yong-Wook Shin and Professor Min-Woo Jo

Recent research reveals that public admissions by celebrities about receiving psychiatric treatment have significantly contributed to the rise in new panic disorder diagnoses.

A team led by Professor Yong-Wook Shin of the Department of Psychiatry and Professor Min-Woo Jo of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Asan Medical Center analyzed data from the National Health Insurance Service. They examined the incidence of newly diagnosed panic disorder patients per 100,000 people in South Korea from January 2004 to December 2021. The analysis focused on the period following a prominent actor's revelation in December 2010 about struggling with panic disorder, which was followed by similar disclosures by famous singers and comedians in October 2011 and January 2012.

Before these disclosures, the average monthly rate of new panic disorder diagnoses was about 5.4 per 100,000 individuals. However, following the revelations in December 2010, this rate increased to 6.5 per 100,000. The upward trend continued, with the rate reaching 8.4 in January-February 2011, 18.0 in March, and 26.0 in April.

The study also highlighted yearly differences. From 2004 to 2010, the annual incidence rate averaged around 65 per 100,000. Post-celebrity disclosures, the rate steadily increased, reaching 610 per 100,000 in 2021—approximately 9.4 times higher than 17 years earlier.

These findings were recently published in the American international journal ‘JAMA Network Open.’