QUALITY OF LIFE AS DETERMINED BY PSORIASIS: PATIENTS’ PERSPECTIVE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL BEING

Abstract

Mental health, undoubtedly occupies a pivotal role in the life of an individual and the society at large. Any disharmony in the maintenance of normal health has been found resulting in the hampered psychosocial functioning leading to highly distressing and devastating situations. In today‘s world of awareness and self-preservation, ―Psoriasis‖ a skin disease of organic nature which has tremendously attracted the attention of the affectees as well as the Social and Health Scientists and more so the psychologists who feel desperately concerned with the mental health of people. The present study therefore has its main focus on the psychological well being by exploring its prevalence, etiology and its distressing effects leading to a host of psychosocial problems. Tremendous work done in the advanced world inspired the researcher to probe the prevalence and its consequences in Pakistan. A purposive sample consisting of 300 patients of psoriasis was contacted for data collection. All the patients were taken from the government hospitals of Lahore cosmopolitan. The control group was selected and matched with regard to gender, marital status, family system and age (except existence of psoriasis) in groups so that the two groups were subjected to the same environmental background and hence results could be reliably compared. The participants were administered in addition to demographic questionnaire, (i) an urdu version of duly standardized Medical Outcome Study short form Health Survey (SF-36), (ii) standardized urdu adaptation of Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) (iii) and udru adapted and semi standardized version of Psoriasis Quality of life Questionnaire (PQLQ) for finding out the general health, anxiety depression and psoriasis related quality of life of the people. Data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics indicated that out of 300 respondents the patients‘ age ranged from 18-56 years with mean age xvof 37 years. Further 148 patients belonged to nuclear family system where as 152 patients lived in a joint family system. The lot was further identified as consisting of 110 (37%) married and 190 (63%) unmarried. Necessary and relevant statistical analyses such as Regression analysis, ANOVA and t-test were employed for inferential statistics. The results revealed that patients showed a considerable and significant loss of quality of life due to the disease psoriasis. Additionally the experience of anxiety and depression was observed more in women than men, it was also found that severity of the disease affected the physical, as well emotional well being of the patients. These results provided the answers to the questions about the relationship between ̳the degree of severity of psoriasis‘ and the ̳resultant anxiety and depression‘ as determining factors of quality of life and congenial living. Information gained from this study can be used to demonstrate the importance of physician-patient communication and serve as an adjunct to future research exploring the impact of psoriasis on quality of life. In addition, the reported findings as above may serve as a better guideline for exploring more aggressive treatment options.