An article published in Pediatric Dermatology said, "The GPP pattern is as an acute, episodic, and potentially life-threatening form of psoriasis." There is no cure-all treatment for GPP, and as such, the mortality rate is high. Ryan and Baker observed 155 patients with GPP, 106 of which were followed up with. 26 of those 106 died as a result of the psoriasis or the treatment. Their data gives a 25% mortality rate. Case reports
Case report 1
Von Zumbusch observed a male patient, who had had classic psoriasis for several years, and who then went through recurrent episodes of bright [erythema] and [edema], which became studded with multiple pustules. Von Zumbusch observed this patient through nine hospital admissions over 10 years. Case report 2
Hazarika gave a report of a 29-year-old woman with no family history of psoriasis, having had a normal first pregnancy, who presented with GPP in the twenty-eighth week of her second pregnancy. Steroid therapy caused a worsening of the symptoms. With cyclosporine the lesions cleared in 10–14 days, but new lesions appeared. The patient gave birth to a healthy baby in the thirty-eighth week of pregnancy. A month and a half after delivery, the woman presented with a psoriatic plaque on her leg. Case report 3
An eleven-year-old boy had an eight-year history of recurrent GPP. He suffered from "fever, malaise and pain". He was treated with acitretin, and improvement was seen in five weeks.
Through research and observation, many of these factors have been identified. The following table, from an article in Cutis, lists a few factors that have been observed as influential in the onset of GPP. Source: "Table II", "Pustular Psoriasis" Farber and Nall, 1993

Genetic factors
Although there are likely to be multiple genetic factors and environmental triggers, mutations causing defects in the IL-36RN, CARD14 and AP1S3 genes have been shown to cause GPP. Diagnosis
Classification
It is important to note that while there are different forms of GPP, they are not exclusive of each other. One can morph into another, or multiple forms can occur simultaneously. von Zumbusch acute generalized pustular psoriasis
Von Zumbusch psoriasis is named after the German dermatologist Leo Ritter von Zumbusch (1874–1940), son of Kaspar von Zumbusch, who described the first documented case of generalized pustular psoriasis in the early 1900s. See Case Report #1. Sometimes all or any of GPP is referred to as von Zumbusch psoriasis, but in the literature it is often distinguished as one specific form of GPP.Eugene M. Farber, MD and colleagues provide a description of von Zumbusch psoriasis in "Pustular Psoriasis", published in Cutis. They describe the pattern as having "waves of widespread or universally fiery redness". The affected areas are "painful and tender". Small sub-corneal pustules form, with sizes originally between 1 and 10 mm in diameter. These pustules may merge to form "yellow-green lakes of pus". The pustules dry out, and "Waves of scarlatiniform [resembling scarlet fever] peeling follow, removing the desiccating pustules".