Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Awareness of risk factors for skin infections and its impact on quality of life among adults in a malaysian city: a cross-sectional study

Ghaneshwari Ramamuthie¹, Rohit Kumar Venna¹, Jamunarani Appalasamy¹ , Ankur Barua²

¹Department of Pharmacy Practice School of Pharmacy; ²Department of Community Medicine, School of Medicine, International Medical University, Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-57000.

For correspondence:- Jamunarani Appalasamy Email: jhamunaa2@gmail.com

Received: 13 May 2015 Accepted: 10 September 2015 Published: 31 October 2015

Citation: Ramamuthie G, Venna RK, Appalasamy J, Barua A. Awareness of risk factors for skin infections and its impact on quality of life among adults in a malaysian city: a cross-sectional study. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(10):1913-1917 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i10.25

© 2015 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To explore the level of awareness of risk factors related to skin infection and its impact on quality of life (QoL) in Klang, Malaysia.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among adults in Klang, Malaysia using a validated questionnaire and Dermatology Quality of Life Index (DLQI). A stratified and convenient sampling technique was executed. Multivariate analysis was employed to summarize significant relationships between variables.

Results: The prevalence of skin infection was 59 %. A majority (51.9 %) of the participants had experienced or claimed to have bacterial infections of the skin. More than 50 % of them were aware of the risk factors for skin infection. Several significant associations (p < 0.05) between variables of awareness of risk factors associated with skin infection and QoL were documented.

Conclusion: Awareness of the risk factors contributing to skin infection do play a major role in improving basic understanding of skin infections and quality of life among Malaysians in Klang.

Keywords: Skin infection, Awareness, Risk factors, Quality of Life