Assessment of Common Skin Problems and Evaluation of Personal Skincare Safety Practices Among Adults. A Community-Based Clinical Study
Prevalence of Skin Issues and Care Practices
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69750/dmls.01.01.019Keywords:
Common skin problems, Skincare safety, Acne, Fungal infections, Pigmentation disorders, Contact dermatitis, Over-the-counter creamsAbstract
Background: Skin disorders are one of the health concerns, which are most frequent in the world and greatly influence the quality of living of an individual. Problematic skincare practices such as self-medication and application of unregulated products are other factors that adversely affect dermatological complications among most communities.
Objective: To evaluate the rate of prevalence of common skin issues among adults and their individual practices with regard to skincare safety.
Methods: It was a community-based study, which used random sampling to select 100 adults in the study, a cross-sectional study. A structured questionnaire was reported to gather data on the level of demographic information, skin problems, skincare practices and safety practices. Major visual examination of small skin problems was carried out where allowed. The statistical analysis was done in descriptive and inferential modes and the level of significance was p < 0.05.
Results: Seventy-six percent of all participants cited at least one of the skin problems. The most common one was acne (32%), then itch (28%), dandruff (26%), fungal infections (22%), pigmentation conditions (18%), and allergic dermatitis (15%). There were unsafe skincare practices: 54% used over-the-counter creams, 30% used fairness/bleaching products, 18% used topical steroids without prescription, and 34% used herbal or unknown cosmetic creams. There were also significant correlations between unsafe practices and skin problems (especially topical steroid misuse and pigmentation problems) (p < 0.05) sharing personal items and fungal (p < 0.05) and absence of sunscreen use and pigmentation (p < 0.01).
Conclusion: Ordinary skin issues are very rife and unsafe skincare practices have a great contribution to their prevalence. The health education in the community and control of the detrimental skincare products are in urgent need to encourage safer practices and minimize dermatological morbidity.
Downloads
References
Williams HC, Dellavalle RP, Garner S. Acne vulgaris. Lancet. 2012;379(9813):361-372. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60321-8
Hay RJ, Johns NE, Williams HC, et al. The Global Burden of Skin Disease. J Invest Dermatol. 2014;134(6):1527-1534. doi:10.1038/jid.2013.446
Langan SM, Irvine AD, Weidinger S. Atopic dermatitis. Lancet. 2020;396(10247):345-360. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30782-5
Stein Gold LF, Baldwin H, Lin T. Topical steroids: Adverse effects and safe use. J Drugs Dermatol. 2019;18(9):846-852. doi:10.36849/JDD.2019.4382
Dogra S, Narang T. Epidemiology of fungal skin infections. Indian Dermatol Online J. 2017;8(2):77-86. doi:10.4103/idoj.IDOJ_209_16
Sarkar R, Bansal S, Garg VK. Chemical leukoderma and fairness creams. Indian J Dermatol. 2019;64(4):269-275. doi:10.4103/ijd.IJD_129_18
Mills CM, Marks R. Common skin problems in communities. BMJ. 2010;341:c6646. doi:10.1136/bmj.c6646
Bolognia JL, Schaffer JV, Cerroni L. Dermatology. 4th ed. Elsevier; 2018. doi:10.1016/C2015-0-00131-4
Armstrong AW, Schupp C, Wu J. Skin health and hygiene practices. JAMA Dermatol. 2016;152(9):1015-1022. doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2016.1771
Gupta AK, Daigle D. Scalp disorders and dandruff. Skinmed. 2014;12(3):151-155. doi:10.1097/01.SMD.0000446557.39428.76
Grimes PE. Pigmentation disorders in adults. Am J Clin Dermatol. 2009;10(4):217-224. doi:10.2165/00128071-200910040-00002
Perera E, Mason RS, Norris R. Sun exposure and skin damage. Photochem Photobiol. 2015;91(3):594-601. doi:10.1111/php.12424
Agarwal A, Sinha S. Contact dermatitis and cosmetic use. Indian J Dermatol. 2020;65(4):261-268. doi:10.4103/ijd.IJD_378_19
Pires CA, Cruz NF. Dermatophyte infections in communities. An Bras Dermatol. 2014;89(2):259-264. doi:10.1590/abd1806-4841.20142515
Lallas A, Kyrgidis A. Community dermatology trends. Dermatology. 2018;234(3-4):113-120. doi:10.1159/000488004
Oumeish OY. Cultural skin practices and effects. Clin Dermatol. 2001;19(4):405-411. doi:10.1016/S0738-081X(01)00191-4
Chu CY, Liu SH. OTC product misuse in skin diseases. Dermatol Ther. 2020;33(2):e13203. doi:10.1111/dth.13203
Marques SA. Hygiene and fungal infections. Mycopathologia. 2017;182(1-2):101-108. doi:10.1007/s11046-016-0085-0
AlGhamdi KM. Fairness creams and skin harm. Int J Dermatol. 2010;49(4):406-410. doi:10.1111/j.1365-4632.2009.04362.x
Farage MA, Miller KW, Berardesca E, Maibach HI. Daily skin exposure and effects. Clin Dermatol. 2013;31(1):3-8. doi:10.1016/j.clindermatol.2011.11.012
Downloads
PlumX Metrics
Published
Issue
Section
License
© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you must obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
How to Cite
