Psychiatric disorders and symptoms severity in preschool children with atopic eczema

Background: To compare with a control group the frequency of psychiatric disorders and severity of psychiatric symptoms in preschool children with atopic eczema.

Methods: The study included children between the ages of 3-5 who were diagnosed to have atopic eczema. The parents of the children with atopic eczema were interviewed in person and were asked to fill in "The Early Childhood Inventory-4" form. This form assesses the psychiatric disorders and symptoms severity in children between the ages of 3-5.

Results: The atopic eczema group included 80 patients (38 male, 42 female) with a mean age of 48.4 ± 15.7 months and the control group included 74 patients (41 male, 33 female) with a mean age of 49.9 ± 15.19 months. It was established that 68.8% of the group with atopic eczema received at least one psychiatric diagnosis. Between the psychiatric disorders, ADHD (Odds ratio: 2.57, 95% CI: 1.049-6.298, p=0.035), enuresis and encopresis (Odds ratio: 2.39, 95% CI: 1.121-5.097, p=0.022) and attachment disorder (Odds ratio: 2.03, 95% CI: 1.046-3.953, p=0.035) were found to be significantly higher when compared with the healthy control group. When the groups were compared in terms of psychiatric symptom severity scores calculated by using ECI-4, ADHD severity (p=0.043), conduct disorder severity (p=0.001), anxiety disorders severity (p<0.001), eating disorders severity (p=0.011) and tic disorder severity (p=0.01) were found to be higher in the atopic eczema group.

Conclusion: Psychiatric illnesses are frequent in preschool children with atopic eczema.