ORIGINAL ARTICLE   Free access

Italian Journal of Dermatology and Venereology 2021 February;156(1):57-61

DOI: 10.23736/S2784-8671.19.06423-X

Copyright © 2019 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Correlation between chronic skin ulcers dimension and burden of suffering evaluated with PRISM test

Paola MONARI ¹, Marta FUSANO ¹ ✉, Ruggero MORO ¹, Caravello SIMONE ¹, Cosimo MISCIALI ², Carlotta BARALDI ², Mario PUVIANI ³, Daniela OLEZZI ³, Stefano CACCAVALE ⁴, Alberico MOTOLESE ⁵, Giulio GUALDI ⁶

¹ Department of Dermatology, ASST Spedali Civili of Brescia, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy; ² Department of Dermatology, S. Orsola Malpighi Polyclinic, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy; ³ Department of Dermatology, Sassuolo Hospital, Sassuolo, Italy; ⁴ Luigi Vanvitelli University of Campania, Naples, Italy; ⁵ Department of Dermatology, Circolo Hospital and Macchi Foundation, Varese, Italy; ⁶ Department of Dermatology, University of Chieti and Pescara, Chieti, Italy

BACKGROUND: In the practice of dermatology, many tools are available to help the physician measure the patient’s quality of life. The Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure (PRISM) is a novel and simple method to measure personal suffering. The aim of our study was to evaluate, using PRISM, whether the reduction of the ulcers’ size positively correlated with an improvement of the patients’ suffering.
METHODS: This was a multicenter national prospective study. 143 patients from five dermatological centers were enrolled in the study. At times T0 and T1 (after 1 month), the size of the ulcers was collected for each patient. At the same time, the PRISM test was also administered, in order to calculate the Self-Illness-Separation (SIS).
RESULTS: First, a substantial decrement of the size of the ulcer seemed to correlate with a significant difference between the SIS score obtained at T0 and T1. On the contrary, the duration of the wound did not seem to influence the SIS value. No relationship between the age of the patient and the SIS value was found either.
CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed that the decrease in the wound dimension positively affects the patient’s suffering. In fact, ulcer’s size reduction is correlated with an improvement in the patient’s disease perception.

KEY WORDS: Skin ulcer; Wounds and injuries; Dermatology