A clinicodemographic study and life quality Assessment in seborrheic dermatitis at a tertiary care centre in South India

• Author Details:   
• Nisanth Balaji Palanisamy
• Seethalakshmi Ganga Vellaisamy ^*
• Divyasri Thangamuthu
• Navakumar Manickam
• Kannan Gopalan

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Introduction: Seborrheic dermatitis (SD) is a common, recurring papulosquamous disorder. Although it’s not a fatal disease, it can have substantial consequence on the quality of life due to its symptoms leading to significant effect on the quality of life (QOL)

Aims & Objectives: To study the clinicodemographic profile of SD and to evaluate the dermatological life quality index (DLQI) in such patients.

Materials and Methods: This was a cross sectional study, done for a period of one year. A total of 100 patients with SD were included in the study. Quality of life was measured by utilising dermatological life quality index (DLQI) questionnaire.

Results: The mean age of our study population was 29.69± 6.9 years. The male: female ratio was 1:2. The most severe symptom was scaling (mean: 2.17), followed by pruritus (mean: 2.12) and oily skin (mean: 0.72). The mean of the DLQI score in our study was 4.45. Of the 100 patients, 69% of patients had small effect on the life quality, 29% had moderate effect and 2% had no effect on life quality. Regarding individual domains in DLQI, itching and embarrassment had the highest mean DLQI score (1.78 and 1.62) respectively. Statistically significant association existed between DLQI score and Scaling, Pruritus.

Conclusion: This study portrays that SD is having influence on the life quality and it’s primarily attributed to the pruritus and also the cosmetic imperfection caused by the scaling.

Take Home Message: Even though Seborrheic dermatitis is not a life threatening dermatoses, it has a significant negative influence on the life quality leading to loss of self-esteem. This study highlights that DLQI is one of the simple tool which is useful in understanding the effect of SD over the life quality which helps in assessing treatment options for the patients.