Patients' Illness Perception as a Tool to Improve Individual Disease Management in Primary Cutaneous Lymphomas

Acta Derm Venereol. 2018 Feb 7;98(2):240-245. doi: 10.2340/00015555-2819.

Abstract

The Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R) has been shown to assess illness perception reproducibly in primary cutaneous T-cell lymphomas (CTCL). Illness perception reflects patients' individual concepts of understanding and interpretation of the disease, influencing illness behaviour and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). This study investigated the clinical relevance of the relationships between illness perception, illness behaviour, and HRQOL in CTCL and cutaneous B-cell lymphomas (CBCL). A total of 92 patients completed the IPQ-R, the Scale for the Assessment of Illness Behavior (SAIB), and a skin-specific HRQOL tool (Skindex-29). Data on illness behaviour were not evidently related to illness perception, whereas illness perception was significantly associated with HRQOL. Both, IPQ-R and HRQOL results correlated with disease entity, stage, and socio-demographics. Only IPQ-R results provided practical information on patients' needs to train personal coping strategies. IPQ-R assessment in CTCL and CBCL might be a useful instrument to improve individual disease management.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Observational Study

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Cost of Illness
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Female
  • Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice*
  • Humans
  • Illness Behavior*
  • Lymphoma, B-Cell / diagnosis
  • Lymphoma, B-Cell / psychology*
  • Lymphoma, B-Cell / therapy
  • Lymphoma, T-Cell, Cutaneous / diagnosis
  • Lymphoma, T-Cell, Cutaneous / psychology*
  • Lymphoma, T-Cell, Cutaneous / therapy
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Patients / psychology*
  • Perception*
  • Predictive Value of Tests
  • Prognosis
  • Skin Neoplasms / diagnosis
  • Skin Neoplasms / psychology*
  • Skin Neoplasms / therapy
  • Surveys and Questionnaires