FRIDAY, Nov. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Repeated panic attacks in people with diabetes can lead to poorer control of the illness, more severe health complications, and a reduced quality of life, U.S. researchers report.

In their previous research, a team at the Group Health Cooperative in Seattle concluded that depression was associated with these same problems.

"But because panic and depression often go hand in hand, we weren't certain that patients who have panic, independent of depression, would also have these indicators," study lead author Evette Ludman said in a prepared statement.

For this new study, she and her colleagues surveyed nearly 4,400 people with diabetes.

Reporting in the November issue of General Hospital Psychiatry, the researchers found that 193 patients (4.4 percent) reported panic episodes that affected their behavior. Among those 193 patients, 54.5 percent also had symptoms of depression.

The patients who reported panic attacks had average HbA1c levels -- a measure of long-term glucose control -- of 8.1 percent, compared to 7.7 percent for those who did not suffer panic attacks. The usual treatment goal is to keep these levels below 7 percent.

The people with panic attacks reported an average of 4.2 diabetes symptoms, compared with 2.4 symptoms for people with no panic episodes.

Panic attacks may interfere with diabetes patients' self-care and their ability to follow their treatment regimens, resulting in poorer outcomes, the researchers said. Doctors should look for -- and treat -- signs of panic and depression in diabetes patients in order to improve their quality of life.