Measurement properties of skin-specific quality of life questionnaires

The new D1 journal article by Ákos Szabó, Prof Dr Valentin Brodszky and Dr Fanni Rencz was published in the British Journal of Dermatology. 

Chronic skin diseases may have a major impact on patients’ quality of life. In addition to the unpleasant symptoms (e.g. itching, pain), patients may face a lot of difficulties in several aspects of their daily lives (e.g. clothing, sport and social relationships). A growing number of treatments are available to treat chronic skin conditions. However, these are often extremely costly, making it essential for health policymakers to have adequate information about the true burden of the disease to allocate the resources appropriately. Quality of life questionnaires play an important role not only in the clinical assessment of patients’ health status but also in financial decision making. Consequently, understanding and testing the measurement properties of the various questionnaires have become an essential factor in cost-effective planning.  

Ákos Szabó is a PhD Student and academic intern at the Department of Health Economics, Corvinus University of Budapest and together with co-authors published the first study in the international literature which provides a comprehensive head-to-head comparison of the measurement properties and informativity of three qualities of life outcomes: Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), DLQI-R and Skindex-16. Importantly, DLQI-R is an alternative scoring system for the DLQI questionnaire that was developed by the research team at the Department of Health Economics. 

Findings from the study help physicians and researchers in deciding which questionnaire to be used in clinical and financial decision-making. 

The full article can be found here. 

Scimago: D1, TOP1 in dermatology 
IF (2020): 9,302 
AIP: 91 

Angol névjegyek : 

Ákos Szabó 
Prof Dr Valentin Brodszky 
Dr Fanni Rencz