Scaling up and institutionalising multisectoral collaboration and policy action for non-communicable diseases and mental health in South Africa: Lessons, gaps and insights from the 2025 Diabetes Summi

Psychiatric symptoms and disorders are prevalent and also constitute important clinical considerations affecting diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis across various medical fields. In this context, psychiatric disorders have been found to be frequently associated with dermatological disorders. Indeed, dermatological disorders often encompass important psychiatric symptoms and signs beyond physical symptoms. The connection between mental illness and dermatological conditions has been consistently proposed as early as the era of psychoanalysis, well before the growing body of scientific evidence presented in recent researches. There is increasing evidence that dermatological disorders frequently coexist with psychiatric disorders. According to numerous studies, psychiatric disorders may be comorbid with at least 30% and up to 90% of chronic inflammatory skin diseases including eczema, urticaria, atopic dermatitis, and psoriasis. Interestingly, academic terms such as “psychodermatology” and “psychocutaneous disease” are also recognized and dermatological delusions/preoccupations are even officially recognized as one part of diagnostic criteria for certain psychiatric disorder in recent standard psychiatric diagnosis system. In fact, these two clinical conditions may influence each other through complex biopsychosocial interactions through immune dysfunction, genetic predisposition, neuroendocrine changes, individual psychological vulnerability, and stress response mechanisms.