Psychosocial Determinants of Quality of Life in Psoriasis: Role of Fear of Negative Evaluation and Social Support

Psoriasis has detrimental effect on patients’ cognitive and emotional state, causing considerable impact on their Quality of life (QOL). The present study aimed to examine the psychological impact of psoriasis as well as the psychosocial determinants of QOL of psoriatic patients in India.

Using a cross-sectional research design, 120 participants both male and female, further constituting 60 psoriatic and 60 healthy controls (age 18–60 years) were recruited for the study using purposive sampling method. Participants were assessed on Brief Fear of negative evaluation scale (Leary, 1983), Social Support Questionnaire (Nehra & Kulhara, 1987) and Dermatology Life Quality Index (Finlay & Khan, 1994).

Multivariate analysis showed low perceived social support (PSS) and high fear of negative evaluation (FNE) in psoriatic patients. However when demographic factors were added as covariates, FNE was found high in psoriatic patients whereas no difference was found on PSS. Pearson correlation showed positive relationship between the QOL scores, disease severity, DOI and FNE and a negative relationship between QOL scores and PSS. Results of Hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed gender, PASI and FNE as significant predictors of QOL of psoriatic patients.

The gender, PASI and FNE have a significant impact on QOL of patients with psoriasis. These findings provide significant new insights into factors that affect the QOL of patients with psoriasis in India.