Quality of life, participation restriction, self-esteem and psychological distress in leprosy and vitiligo: a cross-sectional study from Eastern India

Background

Leprosy and vitiligo are visible chronic skin conditions that can cause substantial psychosocial burden, but direct comparative evidence on quality of life, participation restriction, self-esteem and psychological distress is limited, particularly in the Indian context.

Objectives

This study compares dermatology-specific quality of life, participation restrictions, self-esteem and psychological distress between adults with leprosy and those with vitiligo attending a tertiary-care hospital in Eastern India.

Methods

In this cross-sectional observational study, 111 adult patients (56 leprosy, 55 vitiligo) completed the DLQI, Participation Scale, RSES and GHQ-12. Group differences were examined using independent t-tests, and hierarchical linear regressions assessed associations between diagnosis and psychosocial outcomes, adjusting for sociodemographic and clinical covariates.

Results

Patients with leprosy had significantly worse outcomes across all domains: DLQI (M = 11.04 vs. 5.62, p < 0.001), Participation Scale (M = 28.73 vs. 11.51, p < 0.001), RSES (M = 13.70 vs. 16.84, p < 0.001) and GHQ-12 (M = 19.80 vs. 14.53, p < 0.001). Diagnosis alone explained 35–46% of variance in these outcomes, while adding sociodemographic covariates produced only small, non-significant increments in explained variance.

Conclusions

In this tertiary-care setting in Eastern India, leprosy diagnosis was strongly associated with greater psychosocial burden than vitiligo after adjustment for selected sociodemographic variables.