The Relation Between Automatic Thoughts of Depression and Body Dysmorphic Disorder in Patients Seeking Aesthetic Dermatological Treatment

Abstract

BackgroundHealthy skin is essential for mental and physical wellbeing as it fosters the self-esteem and the sense of self-confidence.AimTo evaluate the negative automatic thoughts in patients with depression and\or body dysmorphic disorder in dermatological clinics and to assess the impact of depression and its related automatic thoughts on the development of body dysmorphic disorder.Setting and DesignIn Mansoura University hospitals and this study is a cross sectional/case control study.Methods and MaterialsThis study is conducted on 67 patients seeking aesthetic dermatological treatment for mild or non-disfiguring facial skin or hair defect and 33 healthy adult as a control group. All subjects and control were subjected to clinical psychiatric assessment with semi-structured interview based on DSM-5, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ) and Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale modified for BDD.Statistical AnalysisData were analysed with SPSS version 22. The normality of data was first tested with one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and Shapiro Wilk test.ResultsBoth Depression and Body Dysmorphic are common among the patients and the comorbidity of both BDD and depression is very high. A Significant correlation was found between the beck depression inventory and automatic thought questionnaire in the subject group there was a significant statistical difference between the subject and the control groups regarding the Yale brown scale, which reflects more concern regarding physical appearance in the patient group.ConclusionsThe frequency of each of depression and body dysmorphic as well as the comorbidity between them is high among the patients who seek aesthetic techniques in dermatology. The subject group displayed more depression, more negative automatic thoughts and more body image concerns as compared to healthy controls.