Early Detection of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders in Dermatology

Many skin diseases are associated with mental disorders. When the psychological symptoms are mild, as is often the case in dermatology, it can be difficult to distinguish between normality and the manifestations of a mental disorder. To facilitate the distinction we review the concept of mental disorder in the present article. It is also important to have instruments that can facilitate early detection of psychological disease, i.e. when the symptoms are still mild. Short, simple, self-administered questionnaires have been developed to help dermatologists and other health professionals identify the presence of a mental disorder with a high degree of certainty. In this article, we focus on the questionnaires most often used to detect the 2 most common mental disorders: anxiety and depression. Finally, we describe the circumstances in which it is advisable to refer a dermatological patient to a psychiatrist, who can diagnose and treat the mental disorder in accordance with standard protocols.