Psychopharmacology for Dermatologic Patients

Delusional infestation: a case series from a university dermatology center in São Paulo, Brazil

“…If a dermatologist suggests that such a patient should seek psychiatric care, he or she will simply look for another dermatologist. The 3‐year prevalence of DI among dermatology outpatients is approximately 4.99 per million …”

Prevalence of psychotropic medication use among cosmetic and medical dermatology patients: A comparative study

“…10,12 The effects of various skin disorders (real or perceived) on patients' psychologic status has been widely studied, and it is clear that cutaneous disease may contribute to mental illness and vice versa. [13][14][15] Society's increasing emphasis on external appearance may at least partially account for this connection and explain why even the medical dermatology cohort in this study showed rates of psychotropic medication use well above those reported as national norms. Of note, in both groups under study, female patients were more likely than male patients to report the use of a psychiatric medicine whereas patients older than 45 years had higher rates of use of such medicines than did those 45 years and younger in each group.…”

Inhibition of Skin Protein Kinase C by Psychotropic Drugs

“…Some of the anxiolytics and antidepressants exhibit anti proliferative effect on kératinocytes [14][15][16]. Modulation of skin PKC by drugs such as antidepressants and antipsychotics, and the resultant altered phosphorylation of substrate proteins inherent to skin, could also be equal ly relevant to their mechanism of action, and may play a critical role in the management of dermatologic diseases with covert emotional symptoms [3][4][5]. Further investigations are in progress to dissect and localize these enzymes and substrate proteins to the epidermis or der mis and to determine the effect of these phar macological agents on specific PKC isoforms.…”

“…For the past several decades dermatolog ists have proposed a role for psychogenic fac tors in skin disorders [1,2], It is estimated that nearly 30-40% of dermatological dis eases may be linked with emotional disturbances [1,2], Use of psychotropics to treat skin disorders is on the increase as dermato logists realize the functional importance of these drugs in treating the spectrum of patient pathology they examine [3][4][5], Based on this, anxiolytics, antipsychotics, antidepressants and sedatives have been recommended and shown to be of benefit in the treatment of cer tain dermatological conditions (delusions of parasitosis, pruritus, chronic urticaria, post herpetic neuralgia, psoriasis and eczema) as sociated with emotional symptoms [3][4][5].…”

“…doxepin, which acts both as an antidepressant and an antipruritic, and (4) cutaneous reactions to psvchotropic drugs [3][4][5], Psychotropics are lipid-soluble com pounds whose mechanism of action has not been fully delineated. However, the observa tion that these drugs which act through the central nervous system are also of benefit to dermatology patients indicates that psycho tropics may interact at a site common to peripheral and central neural systems.…”