Melasma is an acquired pigmentation disease occurs on the face and neck, sun-exposed areas. It significantly affects the quality of life of the patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate the quality of life in patients with melasma. A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted on 49 female patients diagnosed with melasma between November 2016 and March 2017 in a tertiary referral hospital dermatology outpatient clinic. The patients were evaluated according to age, marital status, education level, Fitzpatrick skin type, puberty age, the duration of disease, family history, medical comorbidities. Disease severity were measured with the melasma area and severity index (MASI). The patients were evaluated according to quality of life scales: Turkish version of the melasma quality-of-life questionnaire (MelasQoL-TR), Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), Turkish version of Skindex 16. The correlation between the severity of the disease and the qualities of life of the patients were evaluated. Fourty-nine female patients with the mean age of 36.8 ± 7.8 enrolled in the study. Fitzpatrick skin type III (49.6%) and IV (49.0%) were the most common skin phototypes. The mean disease duration was 56.7 ± 49.0 months. The mean MASI score was 16.3 ± 8.7. The mean MeLaSQoL-TR score, DLQI score and Skindex 16 score were 34.4 ± 13.0, 15.1 ± 7.6, 34,7 ± 16,9 respectively. Significant positive correlation was found between MASI score and MelasQoL-TR, DLQI and Skindex 16 scores (p ˂ 0.05). When the scores of emotion and function of Skindex 16 were evaluated separately, there was a significant positive correlation between MASI score and these scores (p ˂ 0.05). However no significant correlation was observed between MASI score and Skindex 16 symptom score (p ˃ 0.05). There was a significant correlation between these three different life quality scales. Age and education level were not significantly related with quality of life scales in our study. In this study, all scale scores were high in patients with melasma, and were correlated with severity of the disease. Melasma has a significant emotional and functional impact on quality of life in female patients.
Key words: Melasma, MASI score, scale, life quality
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