Health-related quality of life in patients with psoriasis and atopic dermatitis measured with SF-36, DLQI and a subjective measure of disease activity

The impact of skin diseases on health-related quality of life is considerab le. It is important to quantify the patient's perspective of the severity o f their disease. Health-related quality of life was measured in 366 patient s with skin diseases attending the dermatology outpatient clinic in Uppsala , Sweden, from November 1996 to December 1997, with 1 generic (SF-36) and 1 disease-specific (DLQI) health-related quality of life instrument, and a s ubjective measure of disease activity, The SF-36 mean scores were below tho se of the age- and gender-matched general population in Sweden. No differen ce in health-related quality of life was found between men and women or bet ween patients with atopic dermatitis and psoriatic patients. However, patie nts with psoriatic arthritis had significantly poorer health-related qualit y of Life than both patients with atopic dermatitis and psoriatic patients. The estimated correlations between the instruments were in the expected di rection and mostly significant, The results confirm that skin diseases have an adverse impact on patients' health-related quality of life.