Quality of life related to health is an important factor while evaluating the impairment of a disease and the benefit of treatment, especially in a chronic dermatologic condition such as eczema. The aim of this study is to reveal the difference between quality of life and clinical characteristics of eczema patients pre- and post-treatment by repeated measurement.

A before-and-after, incidence-based study was done with a minimum sample size of 132 patients in a dermatology hospital. Two areas of SCORAD were applied to establish clinical characteristics while DLQI and EQ-5D-5L were used to recognize the impact on patients quality of life. The variance and correlation between variables were used to show the benefit of treatment through the bootstrapping method, multivariable regression and the Spearman test.

A total of 136 patients were eligible for this study with an average age of 36.9. The effect of eczema on participants quality of life was revealed through a DLQI mean score of 7.0 (6.2-7.8). A correlation between clinical factors, DLQI, and EQ-5D results (p-value < 0.01) was seen. After the post-treatment assessment, the DLQI score reduced by 3.7 points, and a multivariable model revealed the effect levels of symptoms on improvement of patients.

The study concluded that eczema can lead to a negative effect on patients in several aspects of their lives. Decreasing the subjective symptoms can significantly improve the quality of life of eczema patients.

Source: Le PH, Vo TQ, Nguyen NH. Quality of life measurement alteration among Vietnamese: Impact and treatment benefit related to eczema. J Pak Med Assoc. 2019;69(Suppl 2)(6):S49‐S56.