The Assessment of Quality of Life Among Pediatric Patients Having Dermatophytosis

Abstract

Introduction: Dermatophytosis constitutes a group of superficial fungus infections of keratinized tissues. Presently, there is not much data on what impact dermatophytosis has on the quality of life among pediatric patients. With the growing prevalence of dermatophytosis, it has become the time to assess the impact of this infection on the quality of life of the children affected. There is a dearth of quality of life (QoL) studies assessing children in dermatophytosis. The aim and objective of this study is to assess the quality of life among pediatric patients suffering from dermatophytosis. Materials and Methods: Pediatric patients with clinically diagnosed dermatophytosis presenting in the Department of Dermatology at Shri Ram Murti Smarak Institute of Medical Sciences, Bareilly, from April 2021 to May 2022 were evaluated for inclusion in this study. The questionnaire applied is a validated Hindi version of the children dermatology life quality index (CDLQI). SPSS version 23 was used for statistical analysis. Results: Out of 100 patients, 75 were male and 25 were female. The mean ± SD CDLQI score in our study was13.88 ± 5.3. The majority 66.0% of the cases had very large to extremely large effect on the quality of life due to disease, followed by a moderate effect (33.0%). Most patients belonged to class 2 socio-economic classes (31%) with a mean duration of illness 4.75 ± 1.93 months. Conclusion: Dermatophytosis was found to have a very large effect on the QoL of affected children. The CDLQI score was largely influenced by the patient’s age, the disease duration, the number of lesions, size of the family and the total body surface area involved. It was affected more in females. This study also underscores the feasibility of CDLQI score-based QoL assessment in dermatophytosis.