Background:The psychological impact of living with a skin condition can have a profound impact on quality of life and could cause appearancerelated social anxiety. Existing research suggests ambiguous findings in relation to whether the impact of living with a skin condition differs between males and females. Objectives: The present study aimed to explore the association between stigma, coping styles and social appearance anxiety in men and women living with a skin condition in the United Kingdom. Methods: 231 participants (n = 199 females, n = 30 males, n = 2 non-binary) completed a cross-sectional online questionnaire, capturing quantitative data with the social appearance anxiety scale (SAAS), the shortened version of the coping inventory for stressful situations (CISS-21), and qualitative data from free-text comments and thematic content analysis. Respondents were also asked to provide additional free text comments in relation to the challenges faced and how these were managed. Results: Content analysis revealed that males and females faced daily practical, social and emotional challenges and coped with them in several ways; with higher levels of social appearance anxiety associated with both higher perceived severity of skin condition and younger age. Males and females appeared equally as emotionally affected by living with a skin condition, with the only significant gender difference being females as significantly more likely to engage in avoidant coping behaviours than males. Conclusions: Living with a skin condition presents daily practical, social, and psychological challenges for males and females that have the potential to impact on quality of life. Findings highlight the need for dermatological care to routinely address these issues, and psychosocial interventions must be made available to promote healthy coping with skin conditions.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Bites to the human hand, be it from a pet, a stray animal or even a fellow human, may often have dire consequences for the person suffering the insult. Bites by mammals are a common problem and they account for up to 1% of all visits to hospital emergency rooms, in the UK. Clenched fist injuries to the mouth (‘fight bite’) are notorious for being the worst human bites. Bite injuries of the hand and their related infections must be monitored vigilantly and managed proactively, by experts in this field of surgery. In this review article we discuss the associated microbiology and virology of these injuries as well as their management.

Adequate resources are required to rapidly diagnose and treat pediatric musculoskeletal infection (MSKI). The workload MSKI consults contribute to pediatric orthopaedic services is unknown as prior epidemiologic studies are variable and negative work-ups are not included in national discharge databases. The hypothesis was tested that MSKI consults constitute a substantial volume of total consultations for pediatric orthopaedic services across the United States. Study design Eighteen institutions from the Children's ORthopaedic Trauma and Infection Consortium for Evidence-based Study (CORTICES) group retrospectively reviewed a minimum of 1 year of hospital data, reporting the total number of surgeons, total consultations, and MSKI-related consultations. Consultations were classified by the location of consultation (emergency department or inpatient). Culture positivity rate and pathogens were also reported. Results 87,449 total orthopaedic consultations and 7,814 MSKI-related consultations performed by 229 pediatric orthopaedic surgeons were reviewed. There was an average of 13 orthopaedic surgeons per site each performing an average of 154 consultations per year. On average, 9% of consultations were MSKI related and 37% of these consults yielded positive cultures. Finally, a weak inverse monotonic relationship was noted between percent culture positivity and percent of total orthopedic consults for MSKI.

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin condition, which can be affected by stress. Living with psoriasis can trigger negative emotions, which may influence quality of life. The present study explored the lived experiences of people with psoriasis with attention to the potential role of anger in the onset and progression of the chronic skin condition. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 12 participants (n = 5 females, n = 7 males) recruited from an advert on a patient charity social media platform. Data were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Four key themes were identified: (1) anger at the self and others, (2) the impact of anger on psoriasis: angry skin, (3) shared experiences of distress and (4) moving past anger to affirmation. Findings suggest that anger can have a perceived impact on psoriasis through contributing to sensory symptoms and unhelpful coping cycles, and points to a need for enhanced treatment with more psychological support. The findings also highlight the continued stigma which exists for those living with visible skin conditions and how this may sustain anger for those individuals. Future research could usefully focus on developing targeted psychosocial interventions to promote healthy emotional coping.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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