Translating the Science of Quality of Life into Practice: What Do Dermatology Life Quality Index Scores Mean?

Abstract

This study's aim was to determine the relationship between Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) scores and a Global Question (GQ) concerning patients' views of the overall impairment of their skin-related quality of life (QoL), and to express this relationship by identifying bands of DLQI scores equivalent to each GQ descriptor. A DLQI questionnaire and the GQ were mailed to 3834 adult general dermatology outpatients. There were 1993 (52%) responses: male 841; female 1152. Mean DLQI score = 4.86 (range 0-30, standard deviation (SD) = 5.83). Mean GQ score = 1.22 (range 0-4, SD = 1.20). The mean, mode, and median of the GQ scores for each DLQI score were used to devise several sets of bands of DLQI scores, and kappa coefficients of agreement calculated. The set proposed for adoption is: DLQI scores 0-1 = no effect on patient's life (GQ = 0, n = 754); DLQI scores 2-5 = small effect on patient's life (GQ = 1, n = 611); DLQI scores 6-10 = moderate effect on patient's life (GQ = 2, n = 327); DLQI scores 11-20 = very large effect on patient's life (GQ = 3, n = 242); DLQI scores 21-30 = extremely large effect on patient's life (GQ = 4, n = 59); kappa coefficient 0.489. Banding of the DLQI will aid the clinical interpretation of an individual's DLQI score and allow DLQI scores to inform clinical decisions.

Assessment of prescribing pattern and quality of life of dermatology patients by using dermatology quality life index

“…DLQI also describes the burden of disease in terms of importance of the patient's day-to-day life as well as the burden to society. 6 The dermatology life quality index (DLQI) is one of the quality-of-life questionnaires that is specifically designed for skin diseases and can be used both to measure quality of life and to compare it with that found in other cutaneous diseases. 4 Use of drugs in some skin disease conditions may be contraindicated for example drugs like antimalarial, NSAIDS, beta blockers are contraindicated in psoriasis and sulfonamides and sulphadiazinn are contraindicated in scabies.…”

“…Measurement of QOL is done with reliable questionnaires like dermatology life quality index (DLQI), acne disability index (ADI) and cardiff acne disability index (CADI). 6 Assessing quality of life of patients with better service, by acknowledging their real needs and interfering with treatment decisions. There are effective therapies for Acne and administration of these agents can cause an improvement in quality of life and psychological health.…”

How do regional factors influence psoriasis patient care in Germany?

“…The same is true for Bavaria where 18 % of patients had PASI > 20 and 41.8 % had DLQI > 10. These figures suggest a severely limited quality of life [23], as found in international studies in patients with severe forms of disease [10,16,[24][25][26][27]. The sometimes low concordance between the clinical severity of disease (PASI) and quality of life (DLQI) could be due to regional variation in patient numbers and a certain selection bias.…”

Why quality of life measurement is important in dermatology clinical practice

“…Validated descriptor score bands and cut-off scores may be helpful to clinicians 34,35,36 . There is great potential for such information and instant interpretation of scores to be given automatically to clinicians if QoL measures were to be used online, both for direct clinical purposes and for screening 30 .…”