Hope improves QoL in patients with psoriasis

Quality of life among patients with psoriasis, as it related to health-related skin disease, was specifically linked to the feeling of hope among a group of in-patients in a Poland hospital, according to recent study findings from the Archives of Dermatological Research.

Researchers from Germany and Poland, led by Tomasz Hawro, MD, of Charite Hospital, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, investigated how psychological resources, such as hope, positively influenced quality of life (QoL) in patients with psoriasis.

Sixty patients with a diagnosis of psoriasis vulgaris who were hospitalized at the department of dermatology, pediatric dermatology and dermatological oncology of the Medical University of Lodz, Poland, were included in this cross-sectional study (48% male; mean age 47 years).

The patients, age 18 and older, were assessed for their QoL using WHOQOL-BREF, an abbreviated generic quality-of-life scale developed through the World Health Organization, and the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), a dermatology-specific health-related QoL (HRQoL) questionnaire first published in 1994.

Hope levels were determined by using the Basic Hope Inventory-12, which quantifies how much an individual’s conviction “that all is well with the world which is organized, meaningful and benevolent,” according to Hawro and colleagues.

The researchers found that a positive correlation between hope and all domains of WHOQOL-BREF (physical: Pearson’s r coefficient [r] = 0.446, P = 0.000; psychological r = 0.464, P = 0.000; social r = 0.302, P = 0.019; environmental r = 0.480, P = 0000; and global r= 0.501, P = 0.000).

A negative correlation was found with DLQI (r = -0.281, P = 0.030), which indicated higher QoL in patients with high hope. The mean value of the basic hope in the analyzed group ranged from 14 to 39. However, hope was not correlated with disease severity or duration, according to the researchers.

These results indicate, according to the researchers, that high hope levels are linked to better QoL in all analyzed areas.

“Our results suggest that targeting hope in psoriasis patients may result in better QoL,” the researchers wrote. “Thus, interventions aimed at strengthening of psoriasis patients’ hope, ie, beliefs in the order and goodwill of the world, may help to improve their QoL.”