The Occurrence of Psychiatric Illness in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Abstract

A systematic study of 101 consecutive patients with definite or suspected systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) revealed that psychiatric disorders are more frequent among these patients than would be expected among general medical patients. The author suggests that the psychiatric disorders are intrinsically related to the SLE rather than representative of separate psychiatric illnesses precipitated by the SLE or its treatment.