Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Dermatology
Date Submitted: Jul 17, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Aug 5, 2025 - Sep 30, 2025
Date Accepted: Dec 17, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
The Association Between Mental Health and Skin Cancer with the Mental Health Outcomes of Clinical Depression and Poor Mental Health Days: Data Analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
This study examines the relationship between mental health and skin cancer using data from the 2023 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a nationally representative survey of adults in the United States.
Objective:
In the sample of 315,887 participants, the analysis examined the link between getting diagnosed with skin cancer and two key mental health outcomes: clinical depression and the number of poor mental health days while adapting to sociodemographic variables such as age, sex, race, education, BMI, and income.
Methods:
The BRFSS surveys US adults who are at least eighteen years of age and collects data on health conditions, behaviors, and preventive health practices. This data set included responses to questions related to skin cancer, mental health, and sociodemographic characteristics.
Results:
According to the findings of this study, individuals with a history of skin cancer reported a greater number of poor mental health days, despite being slightly less likely to report a formal diagnosis of depression. These results show the great importance of incorporating mental health screenings and support services into dermatological and oncological care.
Conclusions:
This highlights the need for a more comprehensive approach when treating patients with skin cancer.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.