Effect of the pruritus on the quality of life: a preliminary study

Pruritus affects the quality of life (QoL) in the patients. However, little is known of the impacts of itching on the QoL in the literature.

In this study, a questionnaire eliciting specific responses about pruritus was used to determine the effect of itching and its severity on QoL in chronic pruritic patients.

One hundred ten adult patients with chronic pruritus were surveyed. Once itch severity had been self-reported by patients, together with Skindex-29, they have been given the 18-item Pruritus-related Life Quality Index (PLQI) questionnaire, which was used to generated the new index.

Significant correlations have been found between the pruritus severity score of participants and their total Skindex-29 (p<0.001) with its function, emotion and symptom subscale scores (p<0.001 for each). Also, significant correlations were evident between total PLQI (p<0.001) and its psychosocial negativities, difficulties in everyday activities and social live subscale scores (p<0.001 for each). In particular, the emotion subscale of Skindex-29 (p=0.02) and psychosocial negativity subscale of PLQI (p=0.02) were significantly high in psychopathologic patients. A highly positive statistical correlation between Skindex-29 and PLQI scales was evident (r=0.845, p<0.001). For reliability, Cronbach's coefficient a coefficients were 0.931 for the Skindex-29 scale and 0.918 for the PLQI scale.

The results demonstrate that chronic pruritus appreciably reduces the QoL. PLQI could be used in the development of new questionnaires for determining the QoL of patients with chronic itch.