A STUDY OF CORRELATION OF THE PSYCHIATRIC MORBIDITIES WITH THE DURATION OF ILLNESS IN DERMATOLOGICAL DISOR-DERS

Abstract

Background: Skin has a special place in psychiatry with its responsiveness to emotional stimuli and ability to express emotions such as anger, fear, shame and frustration. Aim and objectives: 1. To study the distribution of psychiatric morbidities according to the duration of dermatological disorders. 2. To study the correlation between the duration of dermatological disorders with type of psychiatric morbidity. Results: Patients having dermatological disorder for up to 1 month were not diagnosed of having any psychiatric morbidity. Maximum psychiatric morbidity was when the duration of illness was for more than 1 year. Out of 33 patients suffering from dermatological disorders for more than one year 22 (66.66%) patients had psychiatric illness with a statistically signicant Pvalue of 0.0011. This was followed by patients having illness for 6 months to 1 year. 4 patients (26.66%) were diagnosed as having psychiatric morbidity. p value was signicant and was 0.0043.The patients having illness from 1 to 6 months did not have any signicant amount of psychiatric morbidity. Depression has strong positive correlation with all the duration intervals that are more than 1 month. Maximum correlation is with the durations more than 1 year. Dysthymia has positive correlation only with cases having duration more than 1 year of age. Factor C, suicidality also has signicant positive correlation with the illness having a duration of more than 1 year. Conclusion: The present study suggests that chronicity and long standing dermatological disorder has an impact on mental health of the patient. High chances of disgurement and long duration of treatment may also contribute to the increase in the chances of mental illness.