A psychocutaneous profile of psoriasis patients who are stress reactors. A study of 127 patients

Abstract

Psoriasis is a chronic, relapsing, cutaneous condition with a 1%-2% prevalence in the general population. About 40% of psoriatics report that psychosocial stress significantly exacerbates their condition. However, the clinical characteristics of the subgroup of psoriatic patients who are stress reactors have not been delineated. At a practical clinical level it is therefore difficult to implement specific psychosocial treatments among the psoriatic population. In this study, we compared the psychocutaneous characteristics of patients who reported that stress exacerbated their psoriasis, i.e., the high stress reactors (N = 64) to the subgroup who reported no significant association between stress and their psoriasis, i.e., the low stress reactors (N = 63). The high stress reactors had more disfiguring disease clinically (p less than 0.02); psychologically they tended to rely more upon the approval of others (p less than 0.05) and experienced more psoriasis-related daily stress (p less than 0.005). The high stress reactors also reported more flare-ups of their psoriasis during the 6 months prior to admission (p less than 0.05). We have shown that the high stress reactors can be clinically delineated from the low stress reactors. Certain psychosocial interventions will most likely decrease the morbidity associated with psoriasis among the high stress reactors, and may possibly even result in a decline in the number of major flare-ups of the psoriasis.