The importance of stressful family events in psoriatic patients: a retrospective study

Background: Psychosomatic stress events are believed to play an important role in psoriasis either by inducing or worsening the disease.

Objective: In this article, we compared the role of family stress events against other types of stress events on the psychological well being of patients and on their skin disease. We used our sample of psoriasis patients with said stress events.

Method: Patients underwent a dermatological examination which was evaluated through the PASI index. Simultaneously, they underwent interviews for psychological evaluations. The Hamilton scales were administered to assess anxiety and depression (Ham-A scores significant >20, Ham-D >15).

Results: It has been demonstrated that family stress influences the psychological well being more than other types of daily stress events. In fact, people with family stress events reported higher value HAM-A (P = 0.03) and HAM-D (P = 0.02) compared with those who reported other types of stress events. Women reported higher values of HAM-A and HAM-D than men. The value of PASI in the two groups (with family stress events and those with other stress events) was not statistically significant.

Conclusion: Results obtained from this analysis show the importance of family stress events on the quality of life and on psychiatric and dermatological status. For the psychological morbidity, a parallel approach of both bio-psychiatric and skin care is recommended, especially for women.