Patients with psoriasis have an impaired quality of life and higher use of analgesics than the general population. Whether such use is due to skin pain or a consequence of joint pain resulting from psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is unclear.
To assess symptoms, disease burden, and use of analgesics in patients with psoriasis with and without PsA.
Symptoms, general health (EurQol 5-dimension and 5-levels), and use of analgesics were assessed in patients with psoriasis and the general population from the Danish Skin Cohort.
4,016 patients with psoriasis (847 with concomitant PsA) and 3,490 reference individuals were included. For patients with psoriasis having PsA, itch, skin pain, and/or joint pain was associated with worse general health. Use of opioids within 12 months was observed among 9.0% of the general population, 14.2% of patients with psoriasis without PsA, and 22.7% of patients with concomitant PsA. Of the symptoms, only joint pain was associated with use of analgesics (odds ratio: 3.72 (2.69-5.14), p<0.0001).
Cross-sectional design CONCLUSION: Patients with psoriasis (especially concomitant PsA) have a higher use of analgesics compared with the general population which appear to be a result of increased joint pain.

Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Author