Depression Reduces the Effect of Phototherapy on the Psoriasis Patients

Abstract

The psychosomatic aspect of the psoriasis was always wondered and scrutinized. In many studies carried out before, it was showed that there was a meaningful relationship with psoriasis among depression, anxiety, and worriment. But, there was very few studies researching the possitive or negative effect of the pschologic stresses of the patients. In this study, we researched whether depression, hopelessness, worriment and anxiety have the negative effect to the examination, or not. 50 psoriasis patients receiving the narrow-band UVB (NB-UVB) phototherapy were included to the study. The severity of disease, pre-treatment, and following 20 seans were reckoned by being used the Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI). Morever, the patiens were evaluated in terms of depression, hopelessness, worriment and anxiety by being used the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale -Anxiety subscale (HAS). The patients were examinated in two groups: those are reaching to PASI 50 after 20 seans NB-UVB treatment and those cannot reach. These two groups were compared in terms of sociodemographic attributes, scale scores, disease duration, and the first PASI values by being used the statical methods. Beck Depression Inventory score was found to be statistically significantly higher in patients who did not reach PASI 50 than the other group in our study. Also, no significant difference was observed in other questionnaire scores. However, in multivariate analyses; lower depression score according to the BDI is independently associated with reaching PASI 50 after treatment (OR=0.840, 95% CI= 0.742-0.950, p=0.006). We can increase the effectiveness of the treatment by providing psychiatric support before treatment in psoriasis patients with psychiatric distress such as depression.