Skin Diseases in the Emergency Department: Impact on Patient Quality of Life.

The impact of skin disease on patients’ daily life tends to be underestimated, in part because most skin complaints are not immediately life-threatening. However, an increasing number of studies highlight the impact of skin disease on the psychosocial well-being of patients and the people who live with them.1 Skin complaints very often involve the appearance of severe lesions and acute symptoms that generate concern for patients and their families, thus leading them to visit the emergency department. Therefore, it should be no surprise that visits for skin complaints account for a significant percentage (5%-10%) of all visits to the emergency department.2 The novel study by Alegre-Sánchez et al.3 shows how patients who attend the emergency department with skin complaints have considerably impaired quality of life, as measured using the Dermatology Life Quality Index and the Short Form 12 health survey (version 2). These find-