Review of Psychiatric Adolescent Inpatient with Dermatologic Consultations / 정신신체의학

OBJECTIVES: To review the patterns of the dermatologic consultations of psychiatric adolescent inpatient and to explore the relationship between the dermatologic disorders and psychiatric disorders. METHODS: We retrospectively studied the data from 22 cases referred by psychiatric adolescent for a dermatologic consultation over 10 years in Daegu Catholic University Medical Center and compared with the data from 108 cases referred by the other department adolescent patients. RESULTS: The mean age of patients was 15.9. The male to female ratio was 1:1.44. The most common psychiatric and dermatologic disorder was major depressive disorder and acne, respectively. The most frequent reason for consultation was to ask for dermatologic disease or condition(54.5%) followed by to perform cosmetic procedure of patients need(40.9%) and to perform dermatologic test(4.6%). CONCLUSIONS: More than just a cosmetic disfigurement, dermatologic disorders are associated with a variety of psychopathologic problems that can affect the patient. Increased understanding of biopsychosocial approaches and liaison among psychiatrists and dermatologists could be beneficial.

A Comparative Study on Alexithymia in Depressive, Somatoform, Anxiety, and Psychotic Disorders among Koreans

OBJECTIVE: Little is known about the characteristic differences in alexithymic construct in various psychiatric disorders because of a paucity of direct comparisons between psychiatric disorders. Therefore, this study explored disorder-related differences in alexithymic characteristics among Korean patients diagnosed with four major psychiatric disorders (n=388). METHODS: Alexithymic tendencies, as measured by the Korean version of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20K), of patients classified into four groups according to major psychiatric diagnosis were compared. The groups consisted of patients with depressive disorders (DP; n=125), somatoform disorders (SM; n=78), anxiety disorders (AX; n=117), and psychotic disorders (PS; n=68). RESULTS: We found that substantial portions of patients in all groups were classified as having alexithymia and no statistical intergroup differences emerged (42.4%, 35.9%, 35.3%, and 33.3% for DP, SM, PS, and AX). However, patients with DP obtained higher scores in factor 2 (difficulties describing feelings) than those with SM or AX, after adjusting for demographic variables. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that alexithymia might be associated with a higher vulnerability to depressive disorders and factor 2 of TAS-20K could be a discriminating feature of depressive disorders.