Psychological teleconsultations in patients suffering from chronic skin diseases during the COVID-19 era: a service to improve patients' quality of life

The COVID-19 era represented an important stressful event affecting population in many different ways, with important negative impact on social, working and relational life. Indeed, the home-isolation in addition to the high-level of distress given by fear of infection, has significantly resulted in a large number of psychological-consequences. Moreover, in order to guarantee a continuity of care, different measures have been applied among hospitals such as the implementation of teledermatology services. For these reasons, we implemented at our Dermatological-Clinic psychological video-consultations through our teledermatology-services. Herein we report our experience of 23 psychological-video-consultations, which led to achieve a significant reduction of DLQI (from 4.4 +/- 3.9 at baseline to 1.6 +/- 2.5 at week-4) in patients suffering from chronic skin conditions during the COVID-19 era.

Automated summary

The COVID-19 era has had a significant negative impact on various aspects of people's lives, including social, working, and relational aspects. The home isolation and fear of infection have resulted in a large number of psychological consequences. To ensure continuous care, hospitals have implemented teledermatology services, including psychological video consultations. This study reports the experience of 23 psychological video consultations conducted during the COVID-19 era, which significantly reduced the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) in patients with chronic skin conditions.