Abstract
Background: Psoriasis is a common dermatologic disorder with a prevalence rate of 1%-2%. The social acceptance of psoriatic patients is largely dependent on perceptions of this disease in a given population.
Objectives: This study aimed at determining the knowledge, ideas and attitudes of university level students about psoriasis with a view to assess the need for improved health education of public at large.
Subjects and methods: A cross-sectional survey was done using a self-administered questionnaire from January to April 2009. The study sample was selected at random from the healthy non-medical Saudi students at Qassim University. Out of 1000 distributed questionnaires, 948 completely filled forms were returned by the students.
Results: This survey had a response rate of 94.8%. The respondents were 476 (50.2%) males and 472 (49.8%) females. The mean age of the sample was 21.01 +/- 2.38 years. One hundred and twenty eight (13.5%) respondents had no information about the disease. The most frequent source of information was media (40.7%). The nature of the disease was unknown to 45.6% and 21.5% respondents considered it non treatable. A high degree of negative feelings towards psoriatic patients were demonstrated by the respondents; 70% would not approve their daughter's marriage to a psoriatic patient, and 62.9% would not eat food prepared or served by a patient. Those respondents who had sought information through books or their doctor were significantly more prone to show positive attitude towards psoriatic patients.
Conclusions: Significant lack of knowledge exists among the university level students regarding psoriasis. Our results emphasize the need to design health education and health promotion activities to address this knowledge gap to reduce social stigmatization of psoriatic patients.