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Disease perception and symptoms of depression in relation to health-care-seeking behavior in rosacea patients

An Estonian questionnaire study was conducted to find predictors of health-care-seeking behavior among 70 rosacea patients attending a dermatologist (seekers) or 56 subjects randomly selected from the working population (non-seekers). Depressive symptoms were evaluated using the Estonian Mood Scale (EMS) and disease perception on a visual analogue scale (VAS). Predictors of health-care-seeking behavior were VAS scores above 5 (P < 0.0001), moderate-severe rosacea (P = 0.001) and papulopustular rosacea (P < 0.0001). Also, mean VAS scores were significantly higher in EMS-positive seekers (7.9) than EMS-negative seekers (5.9; P < 0.05). The presence of depressive symptoms was not correlated with the severity of disease but to subjective disease perception by the rosacea patients ...