title: Phototherapy in Vitiligo: Assessing the Compliance, Response and Patient's Perception about Disease and Treatment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Vitiligo is a chronic, benign, but emotionally frustrating autoimmune disorder of depigmentation, with an incidence of 0.25-2.5% in India, the treatment of which is equally frustrating to the patient, as well as the doctor. Phototherapy is the first line treatment in many cases, which needs to be given at frequent sittings for long periods of time. As there is no satisfactory, short term treatment, many vitiligo patients, though enthusiastic in the beginning, become defaulters after a few weeks or months.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study was conducted to assess the compliance to phototherapy (PUVA and NB-UVB), determine the reasons for non-compliance, to calculate the overall response to phototherapy and to know about the patients' perception about improvement of lesions.
  
  
  METHODS
  All files of the patients who attended phototherapy for Vitiligo in the department for a period of 4 years from January 2007 were analyzed and the patients were contacted via mail or telephone and were made to answer questionnaire regarding their disease.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  At the end of this retrospective questionnaire based study we concluded that only a quarter of the patients underwent regular phototherapy, among which the younger patients and those with widespread disease and facial lesions were more compliant. Educational status and sex had no impact on default status.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal University, Manipal, India.
authors.forename: Shakthisri
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kandaswamy
authors.forename: Nahid
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Akhtar
authors.forename: Surya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ravindran
authors.forename: Smitha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Prabhu
authors.forename: Shrutakirthi D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Shenoi
keywords: Adherence; compliance; phototherapy; vitiligo
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