Quality of life in infants with atopic dermatitis and their families.

Introduction: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is the most common chronic inflammatory skin disease, with a significant effect on quality of life (QoL).

Aim: To evaluate the impact of AD on QoL of Montenegrin infants and their parents and to identify predictors affecting their QoL.

Material And Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted between August 2017 and July 2018 and included 186 infants with AD aged 0-4 years and their parents. The severity of disease was measured by the Three-Item Severity (TIS) score, while QoL was assessed with the Infants' Dermatitis Quality of Life Index (IDQOL) and the Dermatitis Family Impact (DFI) questionnaire.

Results: The mean overall scores were 14.72 for IDQOL and 17.78 for DFI. The positive correlation was observed between AD severity and both the IDQOL and DFI scores ( = 0.61, < 0.001 and = 0.67, < 0.001, respectively). The highest-scoring IDQOL items were "itching and scratching", and "child's mood". Poorer infants' QoL was associated with more serious AD ( = 2.56; 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.08-3.04), concomitant atopic disease ( = 3.86; 95% CI: 1.78-5.94), family history of atopic disease ( = 3.80; 95% CI: 1.84-5.77), older age of the child ( = 1.14; 95% CI: 0.20-2.07) and older age of the parent ( = 0.28; 95% CI: 0.04-0.53). Similarly, parents had poorer QoL if their infants had more severe AD ( = 2.56; 95% CI: 2.14-2.87), another atopic disease ( = 2.91; 95% CI: 0.99-4.84) or family history of atopic disease ( = 4.33; 95% CI: 2.57-6.09).

Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that AD has a significant negative impact on infants' QoL as well as on QoL of their parents.