Clinical Photography in Dermatology: Perception and Behavior of Dermatologists - A Pilot Study

Clinical photography is a vital component of patient care in dermatology. Casual sharing of images over social media is a common practice among the clinicians. We performed this study to assess the perception and behavior of dermatologists toward clinical photography.

A questionnaire having 10 questions was prepared using an online survey platform and the link to it was shared in a dermatologists group using the WhatsApp application. Among questions, nine were multiple choice type while the tenth was open ended. Some of the questions allowed multiple responses and answering all the questions was not mandatory. Resultant data was analyzed using Chi-square test for categorical variables and unpaired t-test to compare quantitative variables.

A total of 119 dermatologists participated in the study. Most respondents used personal smartphone (72.9%, 86/118) for imaging followed by digital camera (27.9%, 33/118). Monitoring the disease process (83.9%, 99/118) and research publications (51.6%, 61/118) were the commonest reasons for photography. Except one all participants had shared images and most commonly in professional WhatsApp groups (86.3%, 101/117) and to personal WhatsApp number (31.6%, 37/117). Patient consent for photography was duly recorded by very few (14.4%, 17/118). More than half (52.3%, 56/107) responded monitoring of the disease as the single most important application of clinical photography in dermatology.

Adequate awareness regarding appropriate usage and safekeeping of gadget meant for imaging and necessity of obtaining written consent for taking as well as sharing the images and secure storage of the images was found to be lacking.