Psychiatric disorders among subjects with systemic lupus erythematosus in an unselected population

The prevalence of lifetime psychiatric disorders was investigated among all known systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients in Iceland. The participation rate was 81%. Over 49% of the subjects received a lifetime psychiatric diagnosis. The number of diagnoses per person was 2.3. The most common disorder among those with a disorder was phobia (56%), followed by generalized anxiety (12%). Agoraphobia with and without panic, simple, social phobia, and alcohol abuse were found to be more common among the SLE patients in comparison with a population sample (p<0.02; p<0.0001; p<0.001; p<0.0001; p<0.05, respectively). A possible explanation of the high rate of phobia may be related to the nature of clinical manifestations of SLE, including disfiguring facial skin rashes which may lead to social withdrawal.