Quality of Life Measure for Patients with Skin Diseases: Vitiligo and Psoriasis / 대한피부과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: In recent times, it has been gradually emphasized that an aspect of diseases impacting on the quality of an individuals life goes beyond physical impairments with the development of economic and medical technology. Skin diseases especially may be associated with a variety of negative psychologic effects, such as low self-esteem, feelings of inferiority because skin lesions are exposed to others and cause cosmetic problems. Many researchers have been already established various dermatology-specific questionnaires and disease-specific questionnaires in developed countries, but these are rare in Korea. OBJECTIVE: We tried to survey the social, psychological and physical aspects of patients with vitiligo and psoriasis to evaluate the impact of skin diseases on the quality of life in Korea. METHODS: We inquired after 64 patients by using a dermatology-specific questionnaires Skindex recently developed by Chren et al. It has 6I-items and eight scales including cognitive, social, depression, fear, embarrassment, anger, physieal discomfort, and physical limitatians.