Assessment of the quality of life of pediatric patients with the major chronic childhood skin diseases.
BACKGROUND
The skin is the primary interface of the human being with the external environment and the presence of skin diseases can have substantial effects on the quality of life.


OBJECTIVE
This study aims to make a comparative evaluation of the quality of life of pediatric patients with atopic dermatitis, psoriasis and vitiligo and correlate the findings with the total body surface and the areas with the disease exposed to view.


METHODS
The sample consisted of 118 patients with atopic dermatitis, vitiligo and psoriasis, aged between 5 and 16 years, who were asked to answer the Children's Dermatology Life Quality Index (CDLQI) questionnaire. A dermatological examination for the measurement of total body surface affected by the disease was performed.


RESULTS
The three groups showed an impaired quality of life. Patients with atopic dermatitis and psoriasis showed a significantly greater impact on the QoL than the group with vitiligo. There is a trend towards impaired quality of life in patients from the three groups of dermatoses, which is related to increments in both the total affected area and affected area exposed to view (r = 0.428 and p <0.001, r = 0.381 and p <0.001, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
The assessed children had impaired quality of life. However, there is a significantly greater impact in the groups with atopic dermatitis and psoriasis than in the group with vitiligo. This may be due to lack of symptoms in vitiligo and the fact this group presented a statistically smaller affected body surface than the other two groups.
Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. anamanzoni@terra.com.br
Ana Paula Dornelles da Silva
AP
Manzoni
Rita Langie
RL
Pereira
Roberta Zaffari
RZ
Townsend
Magda Blessmann
MB
Weber
Aline Rodrigues da Silva
AR
Nagatomi
Tania Ferreira
TF
Cestari
D000293:Adolescent; D001830:Body Surface Area; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003876:Dermatitis, Atopic / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011565:Psoriasis / Q000523:psychology*; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014820:Vitiligo / Q000523:psychology*