Psychological Study of Psoriatic Patients

Park, Kyung Jae; Chun, Inn Ki; Kim, Young Pio

Abstract

The subjects of the present study were 111 patients admitted to a hospital and 304 healthy people living in similar condition. A self report symptom inventory, SCL-90(symptom check list-90) was used and the two groups were analysed and compared by many factors. The results of theis study are as follows. 1. All dimensional values of the psoriasis group were much higher than the normal healthy group. In order of significance: depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, psychotism, interpersonal sensitivity, hostility, and somatization(all p<0.01). This result indicates a significantly heightened incidence of psychological problems among psoriatic patients. 2. There were significant differences between each clinical type. As a whole, common and pustular types showed highter dimensional scores than guttate type. 3. In the psoriasis group, subjects over 30 years old had higher scores except in somatization and paranoid ideation dimensions. However there was no significant relationship between age and dimensional scores. 4. Female psoriatic patients showed higher values than male patients on all dimensions excopt paranoid ideation. T verification showed significance in depression and hostility (p<0.05). 5. Analysed by marital status, generally unmarried patients had higher dimensional scores than married patients, but there was no significant differences. 6. In contrast with the control group, psoriatic patients of low educational status showed higher dimensional scores than patients of high educational status. 7. Analysed by job at onset of disease, student patients showed the lowest scores. There were significant differences for somatization(p<0.01) and paranoid (p<0.05) dimensional scores. 8. Analysed by the age of onset of disease, the patients who developed psoriasis before 20 years of ages showed higher dimensional scores than the patients, after 20 years of age. 9. Compared according to duration of the disease, dimensional scores rose in patients under 1 year duration decreased in patients of 1 to 2 years' duration and rose again in parients over 3 years' duratio. 10. As the accuracy of understanding about the disease decreased, the dimensional scores tended to be higher.