With psoriasis, there can exist a very broad range of lesional severity. The comparison of psoriasis with other chronic, debilitating medical and psychiatric conditions suggests that, though not life threatening, psoriasis can severely threaten the quality of life. It ranked even more detrimental to quality of life than even angina or hypertension. From the results of this study, it appears that psoriasis can be physically and emotionally debilitating and is not simply a cosmetic nuisance. These results suggest that physicians planning treatment for patients with psoriasis should consider the severity of skin lesions and psychological and social aspects of the disease.
Psoriasis is a paradigm for skin diseases in general.
Managed care pharmaceutical professionals need to take into account the severe nature of skin disease when deciding what medications to cover. Moreover, because of the severe nature of these conditions, access to dermatologic care should not be impeded. The impact of psoriasis is seen both in disease-specific measures as well as in global HRQL measures. The negative impact is on physical, psychological and social dimension of quality of life and can be greater than that created by even life threatening illnesses. While there are a number of effective treatments available to manage psoriasis, effective treatment must also give attention to the multiple features of the illness and support the need for multidimensional treatment models.