Education Is Important To Remove Negative Stigma For People With Psoriasis, Autoimmune Diseases That Attack The Skin

Psoriasis illustration, autoimmune disease that attacks the skin. (Between/Pixabay.com/Miller_Eszter)

JAKARTA Psoriasis is one of the diseases caused by autoimmune. Public ignorance about this disease causes sufferers to get a negative image and have a psychological impact.

Autoimmune diseases are often heard in the community, but there are still many people who understand what autoimmune diseases are. Autoimmune diseases are very diverse and have different symptoms and causes.

Citing Care, autoimmune is a condition in which the body's immune system reverses to attack healthy cells in the body. Meanwhile, Healthline explains, in normal conditions the body's system will attack viruses and bacteria that cause infection in the body.

But in autoimmune cases, the body's immune cells misrecognize the body's cells as a threat, so that the body's immune cells secrete autoantibodies that can attack healthy cells.

Until now it is not known exactly what causes autoimmune, although some people think this is influenced by genetic factors.

"The cause of the autoimmune is still unknown with certainty, but some factors such as genetic factors and the environment can affect it," said doctor Sean Edbert Lim of AI Care to VOI.

"Most autoimmune diseases also cannot be cured, but can be controlled to prevent the emergence of flare-up", he added.

After successfully escaping difficult times to deal with the COVID-19 infectious disease for the past three years, the medical world has now turned its attention to non-communicable diseases, one of which is related to autoimmune.

At least, there are about 80 types of autoimmune diseases and can attack all body parts such as nerves, heart, lungs, and digestive tract as well as blood vessels. There is also psoriasis, one of the diseases that attacks many autoimmune sufferers.

This psoriasis disease is one type of autoimmune that attacks the skin.

Under normal conditions, human dead skin will be released and regenerated into new skin every 28 days. However, in people with immune psoriasis, the body considers the skin as a foreign object so that the release of the dead skin occurs every day and causes thickening.

This disease then causes the skin to become reddish, thick and scaly. Heavy psoriasis can also affect other parts of the body such as joints, but less rarely than its manifestations on the skin," said AI Care.

There are several types of psoriasis, including the most common plaque or vulgarist psoriasis found. The characteristics of this type are thickened skin, red rash and scaly, with a hot and itchy sensation. In addition, there are also other types, namely tatam psoriasis, with the characteristics of small red spots and pustular psoriasis, namely red rash skin and containing pusah.

Children to the elderly can be exposed to psoriasis and this disease also does not depend on gender. This means that both women and men can be exposed to psoriasis. In addition, psoriasis is also not caused by viruses and bacteria and is not contagious at all.

Until now, it is not known what causes psoriasis, but it is stated that genetic and hereditary factors play an important role in developing psoriasis. As many as 60-90 percent of psoriasis patients are caused by genetic factors and children born to one of the parents of psoriasis sufferers, they are at risk of being exposed to 10 percent. Meanwhile, if a person with psoriasis is second, the risk is up to 50 percent.

Disitat Antara, A Specialist in Skin and Genders dr. Grace NS Wardhana, Sp.KK said the prevalence of the number of people with psoriasis is quite small. There are about 60 million people with psoriasis or only 0.75 percent of patients worldwide. In Indonesia it is the same, where there is less than one percent of people with psoriasis. But in Norway, there are quite a high number of people with psoriasis, namely 11 percent in the last 10 years.

Patients with psoriasis not only experience physical pain, but also have the potential to attack the psychological condition of the sufferer because of the negative stigma of the community in general. Different skin conditions compared to others, psoriasis survivors are often underestimated by those around them.

Pedoriasis survivor Chiara Lionel Salim (left) shared his experiences with other psoriasis survivors in education entitled ERHA Skinability, Understanding Psoriasis in Badung, Bali, Saturday (16/3/2024). (Between/Dewa Ketut Sudianta Wiguna)

"Because the physical appearance of people suffering from psoriasis is not good to see and may be scary, so many people avoid it. In addition, there are still many who misunderstand thinking that psoriasis is an infectious disease," said Sean Edbert Lim again.

Chiara Lionel Salim is one of the survivors of psoriasis, the pain she has suffered since she was nine. He first learned of this disease after the wound fell from a bicycle and did not recover and instead spread to other legs.

Chiara's struggle to deal with psoriasis for decades has prompted her to establish Psoriasis Indonesia's online canals and communities, which until now have around 18 thousand members. The main goal of this community is to provide mutual support to other psoriasis sufferers.

Chiara knows very well how when she was little she was considered different because of her psoriasis. Even though she had felt down, the support of her parents and family helped her accept the situation and love herself.

The negative stigma of the community makes people with psoriasis vulnerable to stress, even though stress can only worsen the situation. Psychological treatment Mental Health Specialist from Bangli Mental Hospital (RSJ), Bali Made Wedastra assesses that negative stigma of psoriasis affects the psychology of patients, one of which has the potential to experience depression.

For this reason, education has an important role to play in converting negative stigma into a positive impact, not only on psychological conditions for psoriasis survivors but also on family and the surrounding environment, so that they can strengthen each other and jointly deal with it.