OBJECTIVES: Chronic pancreatitis(CP), an irreversible inflammatory disease of the pancreas, is characterized by chronic inflammatory cell infiltration and acinar cell degeneration. Emerging work had strongly suggested autoimmune disease, including psoriasis is frequently associated with autoimmune pancreatitis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the risk of CP in patients with psoriasis. METHODS: We conducted a population-based cohort study investigating 48,430 patients with psoriasis and 193,720 subjects without psoriasis matched by age and sex in the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database during 2003 through 2011. The occurrence of CP was defined as outcome. The risk of CP in patients was analyzed using Cox proportional hazards models. RESULTS: The incidence of CP during follow-up period was 0.61 per 1000 person-years in patients with psoriasis and 0.34 per 1000 person-years in controls. Before adjustment, patients with psoriasis had a significantly higher risk of CP (crude HR 1.81; 95% CI 1.53-2.15), which remained significant after adjustment (adjusted HR [aHR] 1.66-1.78). We further grouped patients with psoriasis into those with mild or severe psoriasis and those with or without psoriatic arthritis (PsA). All psoriasis patient subgroups, including those with mild and severe psoriasis and those with and without arthritis, had increased aHRs for CP. CONCLUSIONS: Our data showed that the incidence and HR of CP were greater in patients with psoriasis than control subjects after adjusting for potential confounding factors. Moreover, the HRs for CP were increased in all subgroups, including those with mild and severe psoriasis and those with and without Psoriatic arthritis(PsA).