Quality of Life and Disease Severity in Patients with Atopic Dermatitis

Background: Atopic dermatitis (AD) affects quality of life (QoL) negatively in patients and their families. We examined the relationship between disease severity and QoL in patients with AD.

Methods: Consecutive, newly referred outpatients with AD, 4 years of age or older, were assessed from January 2012 onwards by means of the dermatology life quality index (DLQI, range 0-30), the Scoring of AD (SCORAD) disease severity score (range 0-103), filaggrin gene (FLG) mutation status and paraclinical tests related to allergy.

Results: A total of 250 patients with a mean age of 26.0 years were identified with complete data on DLQI; 148 (59.2%) females and 102 (40.8%) males. Of these 45.6% had asthma, 46.8% had hay fever, 22.7% had a loss-of-function mutation in FLG, and 61.9% had one or more inhalant allergic sensitizations. The correlation between SCORAD and DLQI was 0.42 (P < 0.001). After multivariate adjustment there was an increasing mean DLQI score with increasing disease severity measured by SCORAD (DLQI in mild = 5.30, moderate = 8.59 and severe = 11.94 AD), P-value for difference between groups <0.001; a higher mean DLQI among females than males (9.73 vs. 8.34), P = 0.028; and among patients reporting facial eczema (9.88 vs. 6.24), P = 0.012. No statistically significant influence on DLQI was found for hand or foot eczema, age, blood eosinophil count, allergic sensitization, asthma, hay fever, FLG mutation status and smoking. FLG null mutation status was not significantly associated with SCORAD.

Conclusion: AD impacts negatively on the QoL, proportional to the severity of the disease. Furthermore, female sex and facial eczema are associated with low QoL. Positive FLG null mutation status is not associated with QoL or disease severity.