Abstract
BACKGROUND: Considering about health-related quality of life (QOL) is an important issue in various medical fields. On the other hand reports of clinical investigation are nowadays becoming to be evaluated reflecting evidence based medicine (EBM). The aim of this paper is to review the articles about QOL of atopic dermatitis and to find out what is the relation of QOL research and EBM. METHODS: 40 papers which include both QOL and atopic dermatitis as key words were referred from Medline. They were written from 1993 to 2002. RESULTS: They were classified into four groups for their contents. 16 papers were described using QOL as one of the disease outcome measurements after each treatment. 14 papers were survey reports about the measurement of QOL in atopic dermatitis patients. 5 papers were about the establishment of the QOL questionnaire. 5 papers were review articles about QOL in dermatology. All but one questionnaire that were used in each research were validated by psychometric statistical method. CONCLUSIONS: Every research about QOL is based on EBM. And it is the worldwide current that QOL measurement is required when the clinical investigation is performed based on EBM.
