Psoriasis and stress: a prospective study

In previous works, stress has been found to be related to psoriasis but only retrospectively and/or by means of nonstandardized measures. In our study the relationship between psoriasis and stress was examined prospectively over a period of 20 weeks by means of standardized measures. A multivariate statistical method indicated a positive correlation between the severity of psoriasis symptoms and psychologic distress (partial r = 0.31; p less than 0.01) and the impact of adverse life events (partial r = 0.23; p less than 0.05). According to these results, stress reduction could be regarded as part of the treatment offered to some patients suffering from psoriasis.