ABSTRACT
Itch is the presenting symptom of various systemic and skin diseases. Much like pain, itch has been suggested to be at interplay with emotional states, such as depression and anxiety. Given its sensory--emotional dimension, itch is associated with psychological factors. An association between itch and psychological factors has been previously described (1-4). Factors implicated early on were depression and anxiety (5-7). It has subsequently been confirmed that individuals experiencing such states are indeed overrepresented within certain dermatological patient groups (8-11). Recent research has additionally looked into more stable psychological characteristics such as inappropriate mechanisms for-and patterns of-eoping with stress (12,13) and anger (9,10).
