A clinical study to assess disability and stigma associated with psoriasis

Abstract

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background: </strong>Psoriasis relatively common, chronic, inflammatory and hyper-proliferative skin disease that affects 1.4% to 2.0 % of the population. Pateints with psoriasis have to face severe problems with stigmatization, discrimination and negative attitudes in general among the public, and often bear the brunt of public rejection.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods: </strong>A cross-sectional observational study was carried out on psoriasis patients attending dermatology outpatient department of Era’s Lucknow medical college and hospital between November 2018 and November 2020. Patients with pustular psoriasis, mycosis fungoides, pityriasis rubra pilaris, and other severe medical conditions like heart failure, liver cirrhosis were excluded from the study.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results: </strong>Present study included 170 (aged 16 to 76 years; mean age 37.74±13.70 years; 62.4% males) clinically diagnosed patients of Psoriasis. P-score was observed with increase in Body Surface area, maximum for cases with BSA ≥25%. There was a strong positive significant linear correlation between stigmatization scores and disability scores (r=0.746; p<0.001), thus indicating that with increase in p scores there was a significant increase in PDI scores and vice versa.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> Present study showed that feeling of stigmatization and disability was highly prevalent in psoriasis patients. It was seen that stigmatization and disability showed a strong correlation. The findings of study showed that there is need to create awareness regarding psoriasis as a non-communicable disease in order to increase the acceptance of psoriasis patients in society and to reduce their stigmatization.</p><p class="abstract"> </p>