The Role of a Disability in Children in Manifesting a Dermatological Disease

Abstract

Background: Sometimes there are differences in the appearance of skin diseases among patients who belong to different age or work groups. It is well known that some dermatological diseases are more common in children in comparison to other age groups. At least one out of 50 children has a kind of disability. The degree of their disability is crucial for their social life. We researched if there are differences in the manifestation of dermatological diseases between children with disabilities and children without disabilities and the role of a disability in creating a dermatological disease.

Methods: We examined 76 children with a dermatological disease. Half of them had a serious disability and the other half was the control group.

Results: The most common dermatological diseases in the control group were the transmissible infections such as warts, impetigo, etc. The transmissible dermatological diseases were almost 50% in the control group and only 10% in the group with the children with disability. The children with disability appeared more often with dermatitis and especially seborrheic dermatitis and less common with transmissible dermatological diseases.

Conclusions: The social distance between the children with disability and the other children of the same age is well known. A proof of that fact is the limited percentage of the transmissible dermatological diseases in the group of disabled children. We have noticed that seborrheic dermatitis is more often in children with mental disability who take medical treatment. Seborrheic dermatitis in children with disability without medication is as common as in the control group.

Int J Clin Pediatr. 2021;10(4):70-74
doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/ijcp470