Condition of the skin associated with depression, anxiety and Suicidal Feelings

Article date: August 20, 2010 - 6: 00 PDT

People with psoriasis appear to have an increased risk of depression, anxiety, and suicidality, according to a report in the August edition of archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/files daily.

Psoriasis affects 1 and 3 percent of the population in general, and estimates suggest 0.4 and 2.3 per cent of adults has the condition but have not been diagnosed. "Psoriasis has long recognized to be associated with the potentially adverse effects on mental health," write the authors."In the 1960s, a popular advertising campaign tagged load emotional this disease of the skin such as 'the heartbreak of psoriasis'., however, have been relatively few studies evaluating the psychological results in patients with psoriasis."

Kurdish Shanu Kohli, M.D., M.S.C.E, M.H.S. and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, study electronic medical records in the UK since 1987 to 2002 data. The analyses include 146,042 patients with mild psoriasis, 3,956 patients with severe psoriasis and 766,950 patients without psoriasis (five patients control for each patient with psoriasis, selected the same practice and similar entry dates).Patients were defined as having the emerging depression, anxiety or suicidality if corresponding Diagnostics codes appeared in their records once began tracking.

Patients with mild or severe psoriasis, 25.9 per 1000 individuals per year were diagnosed with depression, 20.9 per 1,000 per year with anxiety and 0.9 per 1,000 per year to suicidality.Rate cases attributable to psoriasis was 11.8 per 1000 individuals per year for depression, 8.1 per 1,000 per year for anxiety and 0.4 per 1,000 per year to suicidality.

"Stated another way, the excess risk attributable to psoriasis is one of depression cases for each 39 patients with severe psoriasis per year (87 patients in patients with psoriasis mild year)," write the authors."The excess risk associated with psoriasis for anxiety and suicidality correspond to a case-by-123 and 2,500 patients with psoriasis per year, respectively."Taking into account these data and the prevalence of psoriasis in the UK, the authors estimate that there are more than 10,400 diagnosis of depression, anxiety 7.100 and suicidality 350 associated with psoriasis each year.

The authors conclude that "it is important to identify these psychiatric disorders because they represent substantial morbidity that can be improved with a variety of approaches to pharmacological and non-drug"."Recent data suggest that psychiatric co-morbidity might negative affect response to certain treatment of psoriasis (e.g. photochemotherapy), while other studies suggest that control of psoriasis is associated with improvements in symptoms psychological. studies on future are necessary to determine the mechanisms by which psoriasis is associated with depression, anxiety, and suicidality, as well as approaches to prevent such adverse in patients with psoriasis results."

Arch proposal.2010; 146 [8]: 848-855.2010; 146 [8]: 891-895.

Source:
Files of Dermatology

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