Illness Perception and Quality of Life in Patients with Environmental Dermatoses: A Cross-sectional Study

Introduction: The skin conditions or disorders that develop due to various environmental or climatic factors are included under environmental dermatoses. A few studies have shown that different environmental factors can cause skin disorders but have not commented on the Quality of Life (QoL) and perception of the illness due to environmental dermatoses.

Aim: To assess Illness Perception (IP) and QoL in patients with environmental dermatoses and to evaluate the extent to which IP is associated with the QoL in patients with environmental dermatoses.

Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 117 patients with environmental dermatoses who had visited the Outpatient Clinic of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprosy, Kolar, Karnataka, India, between February 2021-May 2021. All patients were assessed with the help of Dermatological QoL and Brief Illness Perception questionnaires. Data was analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 21.0 version. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to see the variances between more than two quantitative variables. Correlations were performed with Spearman correlation coefficient. The p-value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

Results: Out of 117 patients, 54.7% patients were males and 45.3% were females with the mean age of 35.13 years. Infections and infestations (47%) were most commonly encountered which was followed by photodermatoses (25.6%), contact dermatitis (20.5%) and dry skin (6.8%). Dermatological Quality of Life (DQOL) mean score for infections and infestations was 12.63±7.15, contact dermatitis was 10.71±6.81, photodermatoses 9.13±3.94, and dry skin 8.26±4.06. The QoL of overall patients were moderately affected (mean DQOL score of 11). Patients with infections and infestations had more treatment expectations (8.58±1.13), concern (8.40±1.43), strong identity (5.53±3.32), more emotional (7.29±1.80) as compared with other dermatoses which were statistically significant (p<0.05). There were statistically significant positive correlation of QoL with consequences (rs=0.679), timeline (rs=0.196), concern (rs=0.602), and emotional impact (rs=0.583).

Conclusion: Present study shows that the patients’ QoL with environmental dermatoses is largely affected. Patients’ perspective towards the illness directly influences their QoL, so clinicians should be aware of this. Also, if necessary, it is suggested to integrate psychological intervention in the patient management by the clinicians, which will potentially affect the treatment outcome.