Symptoms of psychiatric disorders and problems with their assessment.Part III. Skin picking

Overview

The sin picking syndrome, characterized by repetitive, ritualistic, or impulsive skin picking thatlead to unintenional tissue damage and causes significant distress or impairment in dailyfunctioning, is not yet recognized as a symptom of a distinct ICD-10 or DSM-IV disorder. It isa chronic disorder with a high rate of psychiatric comorbidity. In ethological terms it is a formof pathological grooming behaviour and it is also detected in animals.The range of this syndromeand its clinical consequences are not limited only to psychiatry but extend to other fields ofmedicine. The article deals with clinical features and provisional diagnostic criteria of the skinpicking syndrome, differential diagnosis, and existing treatment modalities with, however, onlysparse and inconsistent results.

Key words:
skin-picking - compulsive behaviour - OCD - anxiety disorders - depression -Prader-Willi syndrome - trichotillomania - Münchhausen syndrome - diagnosis - treatment.