A preliminary study of subclinical panic symptom elevations among adolescent offspring of parents with PTSD who smoke

Objectives: Research has linked parental posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and parental smoking to a wide array of psychological and physical health concerns among offspring. Furthermore, the combination of parental anxiety psychopathology generally, along with smoking, has been linked to elevated adolescent panic symptomatology. However, no research has examined the unique and interactive associations between parental PTSD and smoking in terms of offspring panic. Method: The current study sought to begin to address this gap in the literature by examining adolescent-reported panic symptom levels as a function of parent-reported PTSD and current smoking. Results: Among 25 dyads (M_parent age = 42.92 years [SD = 6.71]; M_{offspring age} = 15.80 years [SD = 1.04]), adolescent offspring of smokers with PTSD reported significantly higher panic symptoms compared with all other combinations of these factors after controlling for multiple theoretically relevant and empirically associated covariates. Supporting model specificity, parental PTSD and smoking were not related to adolescent depression or other types of anxiety. Conclusions: These results are consistent with research linking the combination of parental anxiety psychopathology and smoking to offspring panic generally, and parental PTSD and smoking to panic symptoms specifically. Research on possible mechanisms of intergenerational transmission as well as replication and extension of these findings is now needed.