Psychosocial aspects of psoriasis a lifelong disease
| Date Issued |
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2013-10-17 |
Psoriasis is one of the most psycho-traumatic and life quality damaging skin diseases. Patient's experienced psychosocial distress depends a lot on skin diseases, some conditions affecting the appearance, even though not clinically severe, may have a strong impact on psychosocial life. Patient's experienced psychosocial distress depends on skin disease character (tone), patient's individual character features and life situation, also on cultural approach on skin diseases (the most common expression – stigma). It is widely accepted that psychosocial stress can result from the daily strains of living with a diagnosis of psoriasis. There is now an evolving body of work to suggest that psychosocial stress may also play a role in the exacerbation of psoriasis. It is also likely that the physiological stress response in psoriasis patients differs to that in healthy individuals, as evidenced by alterations in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and sympathetic-adrenal-medullary system (SAM) function. Psychological stress results in a redistribution of leucocytes with increased trafficking of inflammatory cells into the skin, which may exacerbate psoriasis. Langerhans' cells (LC) play a role in the stress response of normal skin; their function in the stress response of psoriasis patients is open to speculation. Based on various studies data, mental disorders and skin diseases comorbidity is up to 30%, suicidal thoughts and intentions – 7.2%. [...].