Health-related Quality of Life in Children with Moderate to Severe Atopic Dermatitis.

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common, chronic skin disease in children that may affect their quality of life (QoL). The aim of this study was to assess QoL in children in Montenegro with moderate to severe AD. A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Clinic of Dermatology and Venereology, Clinical Center of Montenegro, Podgorica, between January and December 2014. The study group included 200 children (97 boys and 103 girls) with the diagnosis of AD. The Infants' Dermatitis Quality of Life Index (IDQOL) and the Children's Dermatology Life Quality Index (CDLQI) were used to determine QoL for 90 infants (<4 years old) and 110 children (4-16 years old), respectively. Severity of disease was measured by the three-item severity (TIS) score. The mean scores were 14.38±5.57 for IDQOL and 18.43±4.88 for CDLQI. A positive correlation was observed between AD clinical severity (TIS) and all the items of IDQOL with Spearman's correlation coefficient (ρ) ranging from 0.31 to 0.74, and between AD clinical severity and all domains of CDLQI (ρ=0.31-0.69). The impact of AD on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was more severe for younger girls, but only in some domains (IDQOL), and for older boys (CDLQI). The linguistically validated Serbian versions of both IDQOL and CDLQI questionnaires showed good internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha values of 0.88 and 0.73, respectively. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that AD has a great impact on QoL. A positive correlation between clinical severity and quality of life was seen.