Background: Psoriasis is common, chronic disease of the skin. The disease has psychosocial impact and associated with impairments in Quality of Life (QOL).
Aim of the study: It was to define the psychosocial impact of psoriasis and to determine QOL of the psoriasis patients.
Patients and methods: This study was conducted on 100 adult patients with psoriasis, attending Dermatology Clinic, Al-Hussein University Hospital and an equal number of normal adults as controls. An analytic, case-control, clinic based study design was selected to conduct this research. An interviewing form and Middle Sex Hospital Questionnaire were used to survey psychosocial impact of the disease and psychiatric symptoms. Dermatology life quality index was used to assess disease impact on the patients’ QOL.
Results: The most common statistically significant impact was the interference with daily activities (59.0%). This was higher in patients with severe disease (96.2%) and with disease affected visible areas of the body (70.6%). The depression was the commonest psychiatric symptom (27.0%); 46.2% and 35.3% in patients with severe disease and with disease affected visible areas of the body, respectively. QOL was poor in 73.0% of the patients; the most common affected QOL mean domains scores were symptoms and feelings (15.8 ± 5.4), personal relationships (14.6 ± 5.2), and daily activities (14.4 ± 4.9). All QOL mean domain scores were statistically significantly higher in patients with disease affected visible areas of the body and with severe disease.
Conclusions and recommendations: Psoriasis has a great effect on the patients’ QOL. It disrupting psychosocial aspects and interfering with symptoms and feelings, daily activities, etc. The highest mean domain was symptoms and feelings (15.8) and the lowest mean was treatment (13.6). It could be recommended that more researches should be carried out on big number of patients in Egypt and on different clinical types to understand the impact of this disease.