Therapeutic implications of adding the psychotropic drug escitalopram in the treatment of patients suffering from moderate-severe psoriasis and psychiatric comorbidity: a retrospective study
D'Erme AM, Zanieri F, Campolmi E, Santosuosso U, Betti S, Agnoletti AF, Cossidente A, Lotti T; Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (Sep 2012)
Source: J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol
Tags:
Background: It is known that stress and/or psychiatric diseases can play an important role in determining psoriasis, including the well-known negative somato-psychiatric rebound that comes with the disease.
Methods: Samples of 38 subjects suffering from both moderate-severe psoriasis treated with anti-TNFα, and depressive and/or anxious mood disorders were studied. Part of them were additionally treated with escitalopram, whereas the other group only consulted to a dermatological and psychiatric follow-up. The aim of this study was to determine if an improvement in the dermatological manifestation as well as an improvement in the anxious-depressive disorder can be observed.
Results: The study revealed that patients treated with escitalopram had a reduction of psycho-diagnostic test scores that measure depression and anxiety levels as well as the values of pruritus.
Conclusion: Our study suggests that psychological interventions and antidepressant medications may improve perceived symptom severity, quality of life and major compliance to the treatment in selected patients (suffering from psoriasis and mood disturbance), without a clinician necessarily being able to see an impact on psoriasis severity.