Dermatitis artefacta in a 10-year-old boy.

Abstract

The biggest problem of dermatitis artefacta, even when you are sure it was self-inflicted, is certainly not to obtain the confession of the patient, nor try to understand how the injury was inflicted. On the other hand, the communication of the diagnosis to the patient and parents is very difficult, because neither the one nor the others accept the diagnosis (1, 2). In the less severe cases as the one presented it is useful to try to understand if the child has problems with his family, with the school, with his friends bringing to light these problems maybe with the help of a psychologist adequately informed and resolve them through reasoning and especially with the words, which should not be replaced by the primordial language of the skin. Removing these problems, usually with family members, is much more important than getting a confession by the patient.