Depression in people with skin conditions: the effects of disgust and self‐compassion

Clarke, Elaine N., Thompson, Andrew R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6788-7222 and Norman, Paul 2020. Depression in people with skin conditions: the effects of disgust and self‐compassion. British Journal of Health Psychology 25 (3) , pp. 540-557. 10.1111/bjhp.12421

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Abstract

Objectives. Skin conditions can be accompanied by significant levels of depression; there is therefore a need to identify the associated psychological factors to assist with the development of appropriate interventions. This study sought to examine the effects of disgust propensity, disgust sensitivity, self-focused/ruminative disgust, and self-compassion on depression in people with skin conditions. Design. A cross-sectional survey with follow-up survey. Methods. Dermatology outpatients (N = 147) completed self-report measures of disgust traits, self-compassion, and depression. At three-month follow-up, participants (N = 80) completed the depression measure again. Results. Multiple regression analyses revealed that disgust propensity, disgust sensitivity, self-focused/ruminative disgust, and self-compassion each explained significant amounts of variance in baseline depression. Self-compassion also explained a significant amount of variance in depression at follow-up, after accounting for baseline depression. In addition, self-compassion moderated the effect of disgust propensity on depression at baseline, such that at high levels of self-compassion, disgust propensity no longer had a positive relationship with depression. Conclusions. Disgust traits contribute to depression in people with skin conditions, while being self-compassionate may be protective against depression. High selfcompassion also buffers the effects of disgust propensity on depression in people with skin conditions. The findings indicate the potential of compassion-focused interventions for depression in people with skin conditions.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Additional Information:	This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	1359-107X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	23 April 2021
Last Modified:	05 May 2023 12:53
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/140679

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