The prevalence of pathologic skin picking in US adults
published online 13 July 2009.
Abstract
Objective
Despite increasing recognition of the potentially severe medical and psychosocial costs of pathologic skin picking (PSP), no large-sample, randomized investigation of its prevalence in a national population has been conducted.
Method
Two thousand five hundred and thirteen US adults were interviewed during the spring and summer of 2004 in a random-sample, national household computer-assisted phone survey of PSP phenomenology and associated functional impairment. Respondents were classified for subsequent analysis according to proposed diagnostic criteria.
Results
Of all respondents, 16.6% endorsed lifetime PSP with noticeable skin damage; 60.3% of these denied picking secondary to an inflammation or itch from a medical condition. One fifth to one quarter of those with lifetime PSP not related to a medical condition endorsed tension or nervousness before picking, tension or nervousness when attempting to resist picking, and pleasure or relief during or after picking. A total of 1.4% of our entire sample satisfied our criteria of picking with noticeable skin damage not attributable to another condition and with associated distress or psychosocial impairment. Pickers satisfying these latter criteria differed from other respondents in demographics (age, marital status) and both picking phenomenology and frequency.
aDepartment of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA
bDepartment of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
cDepartment of Institutional Research and Planning, Palomar College, San Marcos, CA 92069, USA
dDepartment of Sociology, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242, USA
Corresponding author. Clinic Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA. Tel.: +1 617 726 4074; fax: +1 617 643 3080.
ABSTRACT