Scabies affects quality of life in correlation with depression and anxiety

Abstract

Introduction: A small number of studies have shown that scabies causes impairment in the quality of life in adult patients. There was no study evaluated the depression and anxiety and their relationships between life quality in patients with scabies. The aims of this study are to assess the impact of scabies on adult patients’ quality of life and evaluate the relationship between depression and anxiety levels and impairment in life quality. Methods: This cross-sectional study included adult patients diagnosed with scabies in our dermatology outpatient clinic. The demographic data and characteristics of patients were recorded. The effect of scabies on quality of life was evaluated by Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), and the levels of depression and anxiety were evaluated by Beck Depression Scale (BDS) and Beck Anxiety Scale (BAS).Results: Totally, 85 patients included to the study. The mean ± SD total DLQI score was 10.54 ± 6.17. The quality of life of 72.2% of the patients was moderate to extremely large affected. The domain with the highest impact on patients that ‘symptoms and feelings’ was impaired in all patients. The other domains that had the most impact on patients were ‘work and school’, ‘personal relationships’ and ‘daily activities’, respectively. There was a positive correlation between the duration of the disease, the total DLQI score and the severity of the disease’s impact on quality of life (rs= 0.287, p= 0.01 and rs=0.280, p= 0.008, respectively). The mean BDS score ± SD was 12.11 ± 9.52 and the mean BAS score ± SD was 8.81 ± 9.45. There was a positive correlation between BDS and BAS, and total DLQI score (rs=0.448 and p=0.000; rs=0.456 and p=0.000, respectively).Conclusion: Scabies has a moderate to severe effect on life quality on patients. There was a positive correlation between impairment quality of life and anxiety and depression scores.

Dermatology Quality of Life and Depressıon Anxiety and Stress-42 Scale in Scabies Patients

“…The mean DLQI score of our study population was 13.16±7.638. This value was in concordance with the previous studies of DLQI in scabies, which reported mean DLQI values of between 10.09 and 14.95±4.5 [ 1 , 17 , 30 ].…”

“…On the other hand, in one study, DLQI in 72.2% of patients was moderate-to-extremely affected. DLQI was ‘affected severely’ in 41.3% (n=38) of our patients, similar to most of the previous studies [ 1 , 17 ]. A mild effect was reported only in one study performed in rural areas, and the authors concluded that this may be attributable to the fact that the QoL is so poor that people do not consider scabies as a problem at all [ 32 ].…”

“…Shahbaz et al [ 28 ] demonstrated that QoL in patients with various dermatoses on exposed parts is impaired. The negative influence of both symptoms and therapeutic challenges on the quality of life of scabies patients and/or their family members has also been well-established [ 1 , 3 , 4 , 17 , 29 ].…”

“…The psychological burden of many dermatoses, including psoriasis, vitiligo, acne, atopic dermatitis, seborrheic dermatosis, psoriasis, eczema, hidradenitis suppurativa, oral lichen planus, alopecia, steroid-resistant dermatitis, and chronic pruritus, has been thoroughly investigated previously [ 7 – 11 , 19 , 23 ]. There are only three studies analyzing the correlation between DLQI and psychological consequences of scabies, in which DLQI and various psychometric, including BDS/BAS, HAM-A and SAS/SDS, were used [ 17 , 18 , 20 ]. Here, we investigated the impact of this disturbing disease on the patients’ psychological health using DASS-42 and analyzed its possible correlation with DLQI results.…”

“…There are only three studies investigating the relationship between QOL and psychological status of scabies patients using various scales, including Beck’s Depression Scale (BDS), Beck’s Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A), Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), and Zung Self-Reporting Anxiety Scale (SAS) [ 17 – 20 ]. In this study, we aimed to investigate the psychological burden of this disease using DASS-42 Scale and its possible correlation with DLQI results and also to determine whether any sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the patients are related with these results.…”