Patient education in chronic skin diseases: a systematic review

The negative impact of skin disease on quality of life (QoL) has been described in many studies. Patient education as an adjunct to treatment, with the aim of improving QoL and reducing disease severity, is a relatively new technique in dermatology. The objective of this article is to analyse and summarise evidence concerning the effects of patient education on QoL and disease severity in patients with chronic skin diseases. All source material was identified through searches in MEDLINE and Embase. The CONSORT statement was used to assess the quality of reported randomised controlled studies. Ten of 254 studies met the inclusion criteria. In five of them, statistically significant improvements in QoL were reported. The severity of skin disease significantly improved in three studies. In conclusion, patient education appears to be effective in improving QoL and in reducing the perceived severity of skin disease.