title: Disease severity measures in a population of psoriasis patients: the symptoms of psoriasis correlate with self-administered psoriasis area severity index scores.
abstract: Because of the difficulty and expense of objectively measuring psoriasis severity, very little information exists on the severity of psoriasis in populations. We determined severity in a psoriasis patient population using the validated self-administered psoriasis area and severity index (SAPASI). This population consisted of 578 university dermatology clinic psoriasis patients, and data were analyzed from 317 (55%) questionnaire respondents. The majority of our sample was women (57%), and non-Caucasians represented a larger portion (8 %) in our sample compared with some previous studies. In our population, the reported frequencies of skin and joint symptoms were as follows: pruritus (95 %), skin burning (81 %), joint pain (69%), arthritis (51%), and psoriatic arthritis (20%). The SAPASI was significantly associated with severity of pruritus, burning, joint pain, and psoriatic arthritis. There was a significant negative correlation between the number of treatments employed and the SAPASI. This study provides results of a detailed measurement of the severity of psoriasis in a psoriasis patient population and relates this severity to population characteristics.
authors: Department of Dermatology, The Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1071, USA.
authors: A B
authors: AB
authors: Fleischer
authors: S R
authors: SR
authors: Feldman
authors: S R
authors: SR
authors: Rapp
authors: D M
authors: DM
authors: Reboussin
authors: M L
authors: ML
authors: Exum
authors: A R
authors: AR
authors: Clark
authors: V
authors: V
authors: Rajashekhar
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015535:Arthritis, Psoriatic / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D011565:Psoriasis / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy; D012720:Severity of Illness Index