A qualitative investigation of the relevance of skin irritation and self-confidence bolt-ons and their conceptual overlap with the EQ-5D in patients with psoriasis

Qualitative one-on-one interviews and a focus group were carried out between November 2020 and June 2021 among Hungarian psoriasis patients. Patients were recruited via a local psoriasis patient association in Budapest, Hungary. Patients were sampled using a convenience sampling technique. While stringent quotas were not used, the recruitment intended to achieve heterogeneity in the patient population in terms of age, gender and clinical characteristics, e.g. disease severity and types of treatment. Interviews were conducted until data saturation, whereby additional interviews did not generate any important new themes in the qualitative analysis [23]. Study inclusion criteria were as follows: i) aged 18 years of above; ii) diagnosed with psoriasis by a dermatologist; iii) cognitive ability to read and interpret questions in Hungarian and iv) signed written informed consent. A subgroup of the interviewed patients was invited to a focus group to discuss the findings of the thematic analysis. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, online video interviewing was offered for those patients that refused the face-to-face interaction. Face-to-face interviews and the focus group were held in an office at the Corvinus University of Budapest. Patients received a gift card of 5,000 HUF (≈14 euro) in return for participation.

All interviews were conducted by two of the authors (F.R. and A.B.), both of whom had previous interviewing experience. The interview procedure combined elements of concurrent think aloud, where participants verbalize their thoughts while completing the questionnaire, and verbal probing [24]. We used this approach as we were interested in exploring patients’ underlying thought processes rather than exact responses to the questionnaire items. [25]. A topic guide was developed by the research team that included a dermatologist with experience in treating psoriasis patients. After the pilot-test with two patients, small revisions were made to the topic guide including adding a ranking question about the most and least relevant dimensions. The final interview guide comprised of three sections. In the first section, the aims of the study and the interview process were explained to each patient. Then they were asked about their experiences with psoriasis and important aspects of health and health-related quality of life and how these were impacted by psoriasis. In the second section, patients completed the EQ-5D-5L descriptive system, followed by the EQ VAS and EQ-PSO descriptive system (i.e. five core dimensions and the two bolt-ons). The ordering of the three measures was fixed across the interviews. Patients were asked to concurrently verbalise their thoughts when completing the questionnaires and probes were only used to further investigate these. In the last section, patients were asked to directly compare the EQ-5D-5L and EQ-PSO descriptive systems. At the end of each interview, patients completed a short questionnaire about their sociodemographic and clinical background.

A focus group was conducted to confirm the key results of the interviews and to provide an opportunity to clarify any uncertainties. Patients reporting an overlap between the bolt-ons and the five dimensions or providing useful suggestions on the improvement of bolt-ons were selectively invited to the focus group based on their responses during the individual interviews. The focus group was led by one of the authors (F.R.) using a topic guide developed by the research team specifically for the focus group. Another researcher (A.B.) was also present as an observer to take notes. At the beginning of the group discussion, patients were asked to fill in the EQ-PSO (including EQ VAS).

The EQ-5D-5L comprises a five-dimension descriptive system and a visual analogue scale (EQ VAS) with endpoints of 0 (worst health you can imagine) and 100 (best health you can imagine) [26]. Each of the five dimensions of the descriptive system (mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression) have five response options: no problems, slight problems, moderate problems, severe problems and extreme problems/unable to [27]. The summary of the responses on the five dimensions give the descriptive profile that can be converted into a utility value (index score) based on societal preferences. The EQ-PSO attaches two additional dimensions to the EQ-5D-5L, skin irritation and self-confidence, both with five response options [15]. For skin irritation, itching is mentioned as a supporting example both in the dimension heading and response options (‘I have no itching’, ‘I have slight itching’, etc.). The official Hungarian versions were used for both the EQ-5D-5L and EQ-PSO.

All interviews as well as the focus group were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was carried out by three researchers with expertise in health outcomes research [28]. First, all transcripts were read by one of the authors and the initial themes were inductively derived. Categories and sub-categories were developed to describe emerging themes. A customized extraction matrix was developed in Microsoft Excel 2016 and categories and sub-categories were reported, with their associated interview IDs. Disagreements were resolved through regular discussions within the team. Quotes were selected to support the main categories and subcategories.

The study protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Corvinus University of Budapest (No. KRH/342/2020).

A total of 21 patients with psoriasis were recruited, three of whom withdrew. Two participants did not show up, resulting in a final sample of 16 patients. For 15 of them, we conducted the interview face-to-face. The mean interview duration was 59 min (range 41–91 min). No important new themes emerged after the eleventh interview, confirming that data saturation was attained. The sample had a good spread of age groups, was balanced in terms of gender, was well educated and had heterogeneous clinical characteristics. Detailed characteristics of the participants are presented in Table 1.

Patients reported 35 aspects on how psoriasis impacted on their lives which were grouped into six concepts: triggers, physical symptoms, mental health consequences, HRQoL consequences, searching for a cure and coping (Fig. 1). Skin scaling was the most commonly mentioned troubling symptom of psoriasis, followed by itching and scratching. A few patients experienced painful cracking and bleeding of the skin. Among adverse physical consequences of psoriasis, patients frequently reported problems with their social relationships, leisure activities, mobility and limitations in clothing choices due to their visible skin symptoms. These were connected to mental health consequences, such as feeling unattractive, being stared at by others and having to frequently inform others that psoriasis is not contagious or caused by poor hygiene.

Results of the thematic analysis were summarized under the following themes: content of dimensions, overall relevance, missing concepts, ranking of dimensions, overlap of dimensions, suggested changes, response levels, EQ VAS and recall period.

Generally, patients interpreted the five dimensions as intended. However, three patients (19%) interpreted ‘dressing myself’ not as an ability to dress but rather as psoriasis influencing the clothes they can wear, e.g. “My scalp is scaling so I cannot really wear black tops and this is very bad especially that I have to wear black at one of my workplaces and I continuously keep on shaking my top as it looks like I have dandruff”. Another patient said that “I also have a problem with washing myself because I have to pay attention to what cosmetics I use”. There was a considerable agreement about the meaning of skin irritation since all patients responded to this dimension taking into account their perceived level of itch. However, four patients mentioned skin irritation being independent from itch and one patient emphasized the difference between these two: “Well, it is also possible that a skin irritation hurts but does not itch. It is like all bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs”. For the majority of patients, self-confidence covered their problems with social relationships due to psoriasis and over one-third of patients interpreted this dimension as a belief in oneself or being a valued person.

The instructions in the descriptive systems were clear and easily understandable for all patients. In total 38% of the patients considered the EQ-5D-5L covered important aspects of HRQoL: “Overall, I find the questionnaire good because this is what a human being is made of, and these are the most important ones [dimensions] in my opinion, too”. Other patients expressed concerns about the questionnaire, such as irrelevance of some dimensions in the context of psoriasis: “Well, I cannot connect these first four topics to psoriasis and myself”. Two patients noticed the EQ-5D-5L is relevant for detecting the impact of severe psoriasis on patients and recognized the generic nature of the questionnaire. For example, “It is much more relevant for those patients that have joint symptoms or whose condition is more severe” and “here, many of the questions are not related to psoriasis, but to the problems of an elderly person in general.”

Figure 1 shows that the EQ-PSO was well aligned with nearly all important impacts of psoriasis raised by patients, with the exception of skin scaling and lost time due to having psoriasis.

Overall, 11 (69%) patients indicated 16 missing themes for the EQ-5D-5L and 12 (75%) patients indicated 11 missing themes for the EQ-PSO. These missing concepts were summarized under three large categories: general health-related, psoriasis-related and non-health-related concepts. In the EQ-5D-5L, the most commonly reported missing concepts were social relationships (n = 8) with a number of other concepts highlighted by three or less participants. Itching as a missing concept was raised by only one patient. Limitations in clothing (i.e. preference for covering visible skin symptoms or avoidance of wearing dark colours to hide flaking skin) was considered missing by two patients. There were fewer missing concepts identified in the EQ-PSO with social relationships identified by five participants (Table 2). The majority of the remaining themes were suggestions for other background information to solicit in a more general questionnaire designed for psoriasis patients, e.g. presence of psoriatic arthritis, activities given up since having been diagnosed with psoriasis or how patients’ eating choices affect their psoriasis.

In the EQ-5D-5L, over one-third of patients considered usual activities and anxiety/depression the most relevant dimensions, whereas half of the patients indicated self-care as being the least relevant one (Table 3). The relevance of dimensions substantially changed when the two bolt-ons were added to the EQ-5D-5L. In the EQ-PSO, skin irritation was identified as the most relevant dimension, followed by self-confidence, whereas self-care and anxiety/depression were the least relevant dimensions.

Several minor conceptual overlaps were identified between the seven dimensions (Table 4). Two patients described washing oneself as part of both self-care and usual activities, two patients reported a potential overlap between anxiety and discomfort and one patient reported an overlap between depression and discomfort.

For the two bolt-on dimensions, three patients considered ‘itch’ a form of discomfort, and thus, pointed out a potential overlap between pain/discomfort and skin irritation: “I rather have a moderate discomfort, I do not have much pain in my joints, the patches do not hurt either, they rather itch”. Self-confidence showed an overlap with anxiety/depression (anxiety n = 1, depression n = 1 and both n = 1) according to three patients.

Ten patients suggested changes in the EQ-5D-5L or EQ-PSO dimensions (Table 5). Changes included the use of wider descriptors for mobility so that it included other motor abilities and for skin irritation, by extending the range of symptoms described beyond itching (e.g. skin scaling, skin cracking or skin flaking). Few patients suggested adding further supporting examples to other dimensions, e.g. ‘flaking skin’ to usual activities, ‘frustration’ to pain/discomfort, ‘stress’ to anxiety/depression and ‘self-esteem’ to self-confidence. The self-care, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression dimensions were sometimes suggested to be separated. Three wording changes were proposed, the replacement of ‘washing’ with ‘skin care’, ‘anxiety’ with ‘stress’ and ‘depression’ with ‘mood disorder’.

Six patients (38%) reframed the response levels when completing the EQ-5D-5L or EQ-PSO (Online Resource 1). Of these, five patients used the response levels as a ‘frequency scale’ and one patient considered ‘level of bother’ for at least one dimension. This reframing most commonly occurred for mobility, pain/discomfort and skin irritation. Five patients reported problems with the level modifiers, including difficulty differentiating between levels 1 and 2 (for mobility) and levels 4 and 5 (for pain/discomfort, anxiety/depression and skin irritation).

Several participants did not use the stated recall period but intended it as in general for the EQ-5D-5L (62%), EQ VAS (25%) and EQ-PSO (31%). Six participants reported that they would have provided identical answers if a different recall period had been asked: “There is no difference between today and the other days of the week or other days of the month”. Eleven patients reported that the recall period of the EQ-5D-5L and EQ-PSO might be subject to bias because of the daily or within-day fluctuations of their symptoms: “in fact this is changing as dynamically if we had done this an hour ago I would have answered certain questions differently than now”.

Eight patients were invited to the focus group, five of which attended (three women and two men). The discussions lasted 94 min (excluding the introduction of each patient). Three of the five patients considered itch a form of discomfort and responded to the EQ-PSO accordingly, whereas two patients reported their level of itching only in the skin irritation dimension. Of note, during the interviews these three patients did not mention itching as discomfort. All patients agreed that skin irritation is a broader category than itching that consists of other symptoms, such as skin scaling and plaquing. Although patients welcomed the idea to add these two symptoms as supportive examples to the skin irritation dimension, two patients cautioned against creating a double-barreled question and reported that their levels of itch and scaling are often not identical (e.g. slight itch and moderate scaling). Two patients described ‘skin cracking’ as a form of pain/discomfort, while two other patients considered it belonging to skin irritation. One patient said she would report skin cracking both on pain/discomfort and skin irritation. Patients came to a consensus that although self-confidence and anxiety/depression are related constructs there is no overlap between these two dimensions. Of note, one patient in the focus group was among the three patients that had suggested an overlap between self-confidence and anxiety/depression in the individual interviews.