Publication:

Quality of life of adolescents with facial acne vulgaris before and after treatment in Ibadan, Nigeria

Background Adolescent facial acne vulgaris impairs their quality of life (QOL). This impairment of QOL in has been documented to improve with treatment. In Nigerian adolescents who have facial acne vulgaris, it is not known if QOL improves with treatment. The aim was to assess QOL improvement with in adolescents who have facial acne vulgaris. To identify the socio-demographic, CADI QOL items and clinical characteristics related to this QOL improvement.

Methods This was a cross-sectional comparative study. One hundred and nine adolescents aged 15-20 years clinically examined for facial acne vulgaris. Quality of life before and after 6 weeks of treatment with 10% benzoyl peroxide was assessed using the Cardiff acne disability index. Data was analyzed using SPSS 16. The differences in quality of life scores were tested using non-parametric tests. Level of significance of all tests was p<0.05.

Results Post-treatment, the median CADI score improved to 2 from a pre-interventional score of 4, p<0.001. Improvement was observed in all the components of the CADI especially with the question, “how bad do you think your acne is now” with a percentage reduction from 81.4% to 54.6% and this improvement was in more males with improvement from 92% to 65%. Also, post-treatment, moderate to severe clinical severity of acne improved from 49.1% to 10.3%, p<0.001.

Conclusions Treatment of adolescent facial acne leads to improvement of QOL especially in the perception of facial skin appearance and the severity of acne.