Background: Stress hormones are incredibly important in dermatology, especially when looking at the role of stress in triggering or exacerbating some skin conditions. Examples of stress-related skin diseases include psoriasis (Ps), alopecia areata (AA) and chronic urticaria (CU).
Aim: To evaluate serum levels of corticotrophic releasing hormone (CRH) and neurotensin (NT) in stress-related skin diseases and their relation to both the degree of psychological stress and the severity of the dermatologic disease.
Methods: This study included sixty patients who presented to Benha university hospital, dermatology out-patient clinic with stress-related skin diseases (AA, Ps and CU). The severity of each dermatologic disease was compared with the results of disease-stress questionnaires. All results were correlated with serum levels of both CRH and NT.
Results: The current findings confirmed the importance of recognizing psychiatric comorbidity, especially depression and anxiety, among dermatology patients. The highest hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS)-anxiety score was noted among CU patients; meanwhile, the highest HADS-depression score was reported among psoriatic patients. The value of NT serum level was higher in patients groups in comparison to the control group, with the highest value noted among CU patients.
Conclusion: This study offered some better understanding of how stress affects different stress related skin diseases. The current study compared three stress related dermatological diseases (Ps, CU and AA), using subjective methods (questionnaires) and objective methods (biomarkers). It recommends the use HADS in the evaluation of the effect of stress in the studied dermatological diseases.