Psychological Traits of Skin Picking Disorder and Psychogenic Itch

Abstract

Introduction

Despite the intense discussion of psychiatric comorbidity in psychodermatology, research on psychological components of skin picking and psychogenic itch is limited, especially when it concerns patients’ representation of skin perception and their attitude towards disease.

Objectives

To characterize psychological traits of skin picking and psychogenic itch disorder by comparing aspects of bodily experience.

Aims

To reveal internal relations of different components of bodily experience in skin picking and psychogenic itch.

Methods

Thirty patients with skin picking disorder (L98.1) and 18 patients with psychogenic itch (F45.8) participated in the study. The psychosemantic method “Classification of sensations” was used to assess bodily experience. It includes estimation of 80 descriptors from 6 classes of bodily sensations: skin (ex. “itch”), inner body (ex. “sickness”), receptor (ex. “sticky”), emotional (ex. “anxiety”), dynamics (ex. “exhaustion”) and attitudinal descriptors (ex. “bad”). Cluster and factor analysis were performed.

Results

The most significant aspect of bodily experience in skin picking was its dynamics as a transition from irritation to calmness connected with the sensation of itch opposed to all other sensations (there were opposite signs of factor loadings of these variables and they were included in the factor explaining 45% of total variance). In contrast, in psychogenic itch these relations are diffuse and consist of connections between skin sensations and inner bodily sensations and descriptors of emotions reflecting functional origin of disorder.

Conclusion

Traits of psychological components in skin picking disorder and psychogenic itch should be concerned in the complex (psychiatric, psychological and dermatological) treatment of these disorders.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.