Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Quality of life in dogs with skin diseases and their owners
By Noli, Chiara et al.·Published in Veterinary dermatology·2011·Ospedale Veterinario Cuneese, Italy·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Quality of life of dogs with skin diseases and their owners. Part 1: development and validation of a questionnaire.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A study looked at how skin diseases, like atopic dermatitis (AD), affect the quality of life for dogs and their owners. Owners of dogs with severe skin issues reported significantly lower quality of life compared to owners of healthy dogs. Researchers developed a questionnaire to assess these impacts and found that the severity of the dog's skin condition closely related to how the owner perceived their quality of life. This means that as the dog's itching and discomfort increased, so did the owner's distress. The results suggest that addressing skin problems in dogs can improve the overall well-being of both pets and their owners.
People also search for: dog skin disease quality of life · atopic dermatitis in dogs · how to help my dog with itching · owner impact of dog skin problems
Abstract
The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a questionnaire on the quality of life (QoL) of dogs with skin diseases and their owners. Twenty-six qualitative interviews with owners of dogs affected with severe skin diseases were performed to identify which aspects of the life of dogs and owners were impaired. To assess the clarity of questions, a preliminary 19-item questionnaire (answer range, 0 = none to 3 = severe) was developed following current models from human dermatology and administered to a pilot sample of 20 owners. Questions with a low positive answering rate or statistical relevance were eliminated. A final 15-item questionnaire was distributed to the owners of 41 dogs with atopic dermatitis (AD) and 40 healthy dogs. The severity of the AD was assessed by an owners' severity scale (0-3), a descriptive Visual Analogue Scale for pruritus and CADESI-03. The correlation between these results and those of the questionnaire were analysed. Repeatability was evaluated by testing 44 owners of dogs with different skin diseases on two occasions 3 days apart. The QoL scores for dogs with AD and their owners were significantly different from those for healthy control dogs (P = 0.0001). There was a reliable repeatability of scores (α = 0.8). Owner-perceived severity correlated significantly with QoL scores (P = 0.02). The correlation between QoL and pruritus scores was high (>0.36), while that with CADESI-03 was lower (<0.26).
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21410569/