indicate underlying emotional and psychological difficulties. Severe cases also drove up the odds for sleep troubles.
The depressed children were more likely to be female, and from a higher social class, the authors found.
Mild and moderate eczema was not linked to a higher risk for childhood depression, the team stresses. But among children as young as 4, even less serious cases of eczema were associated with a 29% to 84% spike in the risk for internalizing behaviors.
That’s concerning, Abuabara and her colleagues note, because children who struggle with depression and/or brewing emotional turmoil may face a higher risk for depression, anxiety and poor overall health as adults.
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“Many parents of children with eczema will tell you it can be a deceptively devastating disease,” Abuabara shares.
“Eczema has long been known to cause sleep disturbances which impact the whole family,” she adds, “and certainly can take a toll on emotional well-being. Increasingly, studies are revealing that some types of eczema are more than ‘skin deep’, and can impact overall health in a variety of ways.”
In general, “skin disease is well known to affect patients’ quality of life and cause depression,” Dr. Robert Kirsner, chairman of the department of dermatology and cutaneous surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine says.
Children are often thought to be relatively