Effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral stress management on anxiety, depression and quality of life in patients with psoriasis

The high prevalence of mental disorders in patients with skin diseases has been confirmed in several studies. Psoriasis is a chronic skin disease with psychosomatic element and various studies indicate the emergence or aggravation of disease symptoms with psychological factors. Studies also showed a higher incidence of anxiety and depression in patients with psoriasis relative to general population. Psoriasis can highly affect the quality of life of these patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral stress management on anxiety, depression and quality of life in patients with psoriasis.
This study is a quasi-experimental study conducted with pretest, posttest and control group. The sample consisted of 16 patients diagnosed with psoriasis which were randomly assigned to experimental (8 patients) and control (8 patients) groups, following diagnostic interview and confirmation of anxiety and depression. Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Short Form (36) Health Survey (SF-36) andDermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) were used for data collection.The test group was subject to cognitive-behavioral stress managementin 8 sessions. Data were analyzed using analysis of covariance.
The results showed that the average scores of quality of life in the experimental group were significantly increased (P The results of this study demonstrated the effectiveness of group intervention for stress management using cognitive-behavioral approach on anxiety,depression and quality of life of patients with psoriasis.