Rethinking Quality-of-Life Tools for Psoriasis Patients with Skin of Color

Announcer:
You’re listening to DermConsult on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll hear from Dr. Megan Hauptman, who’s a Clinical Research Fellow in the Program for Clinical Research in Dermatology at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor. She’ll be sharing her insight on quality-of-life assessments tools for psoriasis patients with skin of color.

Here’s Dr. Hauptman now.

Dr. Hauptman:
Patients with skin of color tend to experience a greater quality-of-life impact than White patients, and a lot of this has to do with, in part, the longstanding dyspigmentation of skin of color that has a particular psychological impact. And also, it's often misdiagnosed in skin of color and presents more severely in Black patients when compared to White patients at the time of diagnosis.

And then there are also limitations of assessment tools that capture quality-of-life impact. Currently, we use something called the Dermatology Life Quality Index, or the DLQI. It's the most widely used tool in dermatology to measure how skin disease and its treatment impacts our patients’ life. It asks questions about symptoms like itchiness, soreness, and pain, and also asks how skin issues might affect someone's ability to participate in, say, social activity, sports, work, or relationships.

However, the DLQI doesn't address challenges that are unique to patients with skin of color, like dyspigmentation, its social and emotional effects, and cultural factors. And this unique burden of dyspigmentation in skin of color may not be adequately captured. So there's definitely room for improvement or evaluation tools to better serve all of our patients.

More studies specific to skin-of-color populations should assess the natural history and treatment impact of post-inflammatory pigment alteration using combined photography and validated pigment-reporting measures. Interestingly, there has been a recent development of a novel patient-reported outcome instrument to assess atopic dermatitis-associated dyspigmentation in anhidrosis, or skin dryness, in patients with skin of color by Hartford et al. in the British Journal of Dermatology. And tools like this will more adequately capture the burden of psoriasis and its impact on quality of life for patients with skin of color.

Announcer:
That was Dr. Megan Hauptman discussing the unique assessment of quality of life in psoriasis patients with skin of color. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit DermConsult on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!