Positive and negative life experiences in patients with psoriasis

Recent studies have associated childhood exposure to trauma to some skin diseases. Our study aimed at exploring whether psoriasis is related to the reported traumatic life events as well as positive life events from childhood to adulthood. One hundred patients with psoriasis and 101 controls patients with skin conditions considered to be non psychosomatic completed a specific questionnare measuring traumatic life experiences - TAQ. The TAQ asseses positive and negative personal experiences from early childhood to adulthood. We found that negative traumatic experiences appeared more frequently in patients with psoriasis during all development periods. The amount of positive experiences did not differ significantly among groups except for safety scores that were higher in controls compared with psoriatics. Our finding suggests a relationship between retrospectively reported negative traumatic experiences and psoriasis.