European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Present research intends to evaluate the impact of post-acne scars on quality of life.
Methods: The Prospective correlation cross-sectional study was effected out after enrolling 100 cases of post-acne scars aged 16 years or more in an institution based tertiary health care center. The quality of life of the patients was evaluated using the Dermatological Life Quality Index (DLQI) questionnaire and the acne scar severity was evaluated using the Goodman and Baron Quantitative grading scale. Institutional Ethics Committee clearance was obtained before the start of the study.
Results: The result showed that maximum patients, 62 %, were in the second decade, followed by 21 % patients who were in the 31 – 40 years age group. The gender-wise distribution showed that females contributed majority of the cases (51 %) and males contributed 49 % of the total cases.  Only 30% of the patients had prior family history of post-acne scars. The mean age of onset of acne was 18.11 years whereas that of onset for post-acne scar was 21.43 years. The maximum DLQI score was 14 and mean DLQI score for acne scarring was 5.31. We found that, higher the grade of scarring more was the mean DLQI score. We found a positive correlation between DLQI and the post-acne scar severity total score and this was statistically significant.
Conclusion: Acne and acne scarring are influenced by non-dermatological aspects like perceptions, personality, age, social and cultural circumstances as well as disease characteristics such as onset, duration and severity. Assessing QOL first at baseline offers valuable insight into patient’s perspectives. Our research demonstrated that post-acne scars significantly diminish the quality of life in young adults. The study’s findings also suggest that the quality of life worsens with increased severity of scarring. Therefore, individuals with acne should be treated promptly and effectively, to avoid acne scarring or to reduce its severity.