Examining the Prevalence of Obesity and Depression Among Patients With Psoriasis on Biologics

Author(s):

Use of biologics to treat psoriasis may impact prevalence of comorbidities like depression and obesity, according to an abstract presented at the Virtual 2020 International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research meeting.

Depression and overweight/obesity are well known comorbidities among patients with psoriasis, even if these comorbidities affect some populations differently. For instance, previous research has shown that members of the US Latino population who have psoriasis face higher rates of comorbidities such as depression, obesity, and diabetes. As a result, while the prevalence rates of psoriasis are lower among this population compared with whites and blacks in the United States, Latinos with psoriasis are disproportionately affected by poorer quality of life and intensified disease severity.

In the abstract presented at ISPOR, the researchers examined prevalence of depression and overweight/obesity among patients with psoriasis based on biologic therapy. They used the IBM Watson Health linked Claims and Explorys Database to identify patients age 18 years or older. All patients had a 1-year pre-index and a 1-year postindex period with biologic users having biologic claims during the postperiod and nonbiologic users having no biologic claims at any time.

Overweight/obesity (overweight defined as body mass index [BMI] of ≥25 kg/m² and obesity defined as BMI of ≥30 kg/m²) and depression (defined based on depression diagnosis or treatment) were evaluated during the postperiod.

The analysis included 1199 biologic users and 15,426 nonbiologic users. Both groups were similar in age and gender (average age 51.1 years for biologic users vs 55.2 years and 55.1% female vs 54.4%).

Compared with nonbiologic users, biologic users had a higher prevalence of overweight or obesity (87.6% vs. 81.6%, P = 0.013), obesity (60.7% vs. 50.7%, P = 0.001), and depression (41.1% vs. 29.1%, P <.001).

However, despite the findings, the authors noted that the causality of biologics and depression or overweight/obesity was not determined as part of this study.

“Psoriasis management should encompass routine screening for depression and body weight to improve outcomes among [patients with psoriasis] on biologics,” they added.

Reference

Martinez D, Song X. Depression and obesity differences among psoriasis patients by biologics treatment. Presented at: ISPOR 2020; May 18-20, 2020; Abstract PMS81