Non-pharmacological interventions for patients with psoriasis: a scoping review

OBJECTIVES: Healthcare ultimately aims to eradicate diseases and restore normality to people’s lives. However, until this is achieved for every person, there is a need to support and assist patients with psoriasis using non-pharmacological interventions. These ‘adjuvant’ approaches have received little attention, whereas dermatologists and researchers strive for better pharmacological therapy. Here, we aimed to perform a scoping review to identify and catalogue non-pharmacological interventions for patients with psoriasis. DESIGN: A scoping review. SETTING: All healthcare settings. SEARCH STRATEGY: EMBASE, PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Scopus databases were searched from their inception to June 2022. Irrespective of the study type, the studies included non-pharmacological interventions for patients with psoriasis. This theme was extracted from the included articles. Two reviewers independently screened and analysed the data. RESULTS: From 1322 initial records, 71 studies were identified and analysed. Non-pharmacological interventions for patients with psoriasis include two levels: organisational and individual. The organisational non-pharmacological interventions included the nationwide healthcare model (PsPSP, ProvenCare, German PsoHealth and Psoriasis Network, IMPROVE model and PsoWell clinic), innovative teledermatology models (mHealth app, electronic Targeted Intervention for Psoriasis study and therapist-guided internet-based cognitive and behavioural treatments) and multidisciplinary interventions. The individual non-pharmacological interventions included educational interventions (therapeutic patient education, psychoeducational intervention and self-management education), psychosocial interventions (cognitive and behavioural treatments, self-help and peer-to-peer support programmes) and others (happify and motivational interviewing-based training). CONCLUSIONS: Based on previous literature, a nationwide healthcare model protocol was constructed for patients with psoriasis. This provided the direction for developing a new psoriasis healthcare model and a basis for summarising the non-pharmacological interventions for patients with psoriasis, which helps them adjust to changes in the skin disease.