Stress and emotions

Stress has been shown to be an important contributory factor in conditions such as
eczema and psoriasis. The way in which stress affects these conditions is thought
to be a complex process which involves changes in the way children perceive
their pain and itching, changes in the child’s immune function and changes in
inflammatory responses.
Research on children with skin diseases has focused on the role of the family
environment in the maintenance of the symptoms. Different kinds of stress and
family organisational structures have been researched with respect to how they
affect the severity of children’s eczema. It has been shown that less severe eczema
symptomswereassociatedwithamoreorganisedandindependent familystructure.
This research is a good example of the very complex relationship between children’s
skin disease and the psychological factors that can affect it. The authors of this
research concluded that more organised families were better at protecting their
children from stress and better at carrying out treatment programmes than those
that were not so well organised.
Psychological treatments that have been designed to limit the severity of
skin diseases (usually eczema and psoriasis) have included different but comple-
mentary aspects such as working on the reduction of scratching behaviours and
the reduction of stress. Research has shown that patients with severe eczema
who received instruction in relaxation, as well as in what are called techniques
to reduce scratching, showed vastly diminished eczema severity and medica-
tion use.
Interestingly, it has been shown that the use of a relaxation-type treatment
has been successful with children whose eczema was considered to be resistant
to the usual dermatological treatments. The children’s treatment consisted of
listening to tapes of ‘magic music’ to increase relaxation and reduce scratching at
bedtime.Most children improved on scratching, itching and sleep disturbance and,
importantly, a follow-up a fewyears later revealed that themajority of patients had
maintained these gains. It is thought that providing a formof structured distraction
at a common ‘scratching time’ for children is the route by which these treatments
are effective.
Stress, and the problems relating to having the skin disease, play an impor-
tant role in the maintenance of the child’s condition; treatment involving stress
reduction has been shown to be effective.

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