Measurement of quality of life of vitiligo using disease-specific indicator and its association with area severity score

Abstract

Background: Vitiligo is regarded as a psychosocial disorder for which assessment of disease severity is imperative to aid the management of disease. The association between demographic parameters, vitiligo severity, and quality of life (QoL) scores aids in gauging the impact of disease severity on QoL. Objectives: The aim of the study was to measure the QoL of vitiligo patients using vitiligo QoL (VitiQoL) index questionnaire and to assess its correlation with clinicodemographic patterns and vitiligo area severity index vitiligo area scoring index (VASI). Methods: One hundred and eight patients of vitiligo were included in this cross-sectional study. The disease severity was calculated using VASI score and patients were asked to fill the VitiQoL questionnaire (after translation to local language) for assessing the QOL. Demography, area severity, and QOL were statistically analyzed for demonstrating the correlation. Results: Statistically significant strong correlation was demonstrated between VitiQoL and VASI scores (p = 0.001; r = 0.856). In addition, female gender, young adults, lesions on exposed sites, and divorced status demonstrated significantly higher impact on the QOL than others (p < 0.05). Conclusion: QOL is significantly dependent on the disease severity and certain demographic patterns which reiterates the importance of measuring burden of vitiligo as a part of its multifaceted management.

Keywords

• Vitiligo. VitiQoL. VASI. Quality of life.