Severe Mental Illness Among Adults with Atopic Eczema or Psoriasis: Population-Based Matched Cohort Studies within UK Primary Care

Background: Existing research exploring associations between atopic eczema (AE) or psoriasis, and severe mental illness (SMI - ie, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, other psychoses) is limited, with longitudinal evidence particularly scarce. Therefore, temporal directions of associations are unclear. We aimed to investigate associations between AE or psoriasis and incident SMI among adults.

Methods: We conducted matched cohort studies using primary care electronic health records (January 1997 to January 2020) from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink GOLD. We identified two cohorts: 1) adults (≥18 years) with and without AE and 2) adults with and without psoriasis. We matched (on age, sex, general practice) adults with AE or psoriasis with up to five adults without. We used Cox regression, stratified by matched set, to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) comparing incident SMI among adults with and without AE or psoriasis.

Results: We identified 1,023,232 adults with AE and 4,908,059 without, and 363,210 with psoriasis and 1,801,875 without. After adjusting for matching variables (age, sex, general practice) and potential confounders (deprivation, calendar period) both AE and psoriasis were associated with at least a 17% increased hazard of SMI (AE: HR=1.17,95% CI=1.12-1.22; psoriasis: HR=1.26,95% CI=1.18-1.35). After additionally adjusting for potential mediators (comorbidity burden, harmful alcohol use, smoking status, body mass index, and, in AE only, sleep problems and high-dose glucocorticoids), associations with SMI did not persist for AE (HR=0.98,95% CI=0.93-1.04), and were attenuated for psoriasis (HR=1.14,95% CI=1.05-1.23).

Conclusion: Our findings suggest adults with AE or psoriasis are at increased risk of SMI compared to matched comparators. After adjusting for potential mediators, associations with SMI did not persist for AE, and were attenuated for psoriasis, suggesting that the increased risk may be explained by mediating factors (eg, sleep problems). Our research highlights the importance of monitoring mental health in adults with AE or psoriasis.