Psoriasis is not just a chronic skin condition. It can also have a psychological impact that can feel just as bad, if not worse. This can include different types of psychological distress including depression, anxiety, and stress. Coping with the physical symptoms, managing treatment, and dealing with societal stigma or misconceptions about psoriasis can take a toll on mental well-being.
Living with the lesions is not easy. In public, people may stare or move away from the patient, fearful that they will catch what they can see from the patient. People may believe that something the patient did or failed to do resulted in psoriasis.
Many would prefer to live in ignorance instead of arming themselves with information from a myriad of health sources or even asking the patient; they would rather avoid the patient, which affects the patient’s mental health and perpetuates the stigma.
Lack of public knowledge makes it challenging for patients dealing with such painful results of ignorance, and many choose isolation over stares, separation, and stigma.
Unsurprisingly psoriasis and depression have a negative dual relationship. Depression can result in psoriasis, and the social stigma of psoriasis can lead to depression. This association is a “psychodermatological phenomenon”. The correlation between depression, psoriasis, and inflammation is a vicious cycle.
Although people with psoriasis have an increased likelihood of anxiety, the cyclical relationship is not only negative. It is possible that each can impact the other as well, however.
Treatment of one condition may improve the other. This one potentially positive outcome shines a bright light on the future and gives a hopeful outlook on how to address the vicious cycle of mental health and physical health for this condition.
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Stress may not be a direct cause. But it can cause flare-ups in those who have this chronic skin condition. This is understandable. Before going out, the patient may be consumed with thoughts about what the usually negative experience will be like, causing stress. What already is bad in terms of their psoriasis, could easily become worse in appearance and with the patient’s feelings, whether there is ignorance or not. Feeling hurt still happens.
This social stigma is what links psoriasis to a variety of psychosocial symptoms. These include guilt, shame, embarrassment, and low self-esteem, and decreased self-worth.
Thoughts centering on their role in developing the skin condition, whether they did anything to bring about psoriasis, and feeling like less because of it are common. Such poor psychosocial feelings can make patients isolated, making such symptoms even worse.
The root of this suffering and the mental health burden many patients bear is the lack of public knowledge about this chronic skin condition. People may think that patients with lesions are contagious or lack good personal hygiene.
The source, type, or content of the judgment doesn’t matter. The reaction is still one of hurt. Unfortunately, a lack of public knowledge may drive people away despite patients wanting to take a risk and break the barrier of ignorance surrounding the condition.
Black people, compared to other races, are less likely to be diagnosed with psoriasis, but we are also more likely to go undiagnosed. Because of this, if left untreated, the result can be total body inflammation and the negative quality of life that accompanies this condition’s symptoms or appearance on the skin.
Clearly, the physical symptoms are bad enough without the additional psychosocial ones. Living like a hermit is not a viable option or a fair solution, nor is the negative mental health impact on patients with psoriasis a satisfactory experience that accompanies the physical symptoms of this diagnosis.
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