Prevalence of skin diseases of the pediatric population in the Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey

Abstract

Skin diseases are quite common in childhood and affected by geographic, cultural, and socio-economic conditions. There is no reported study about the prevalence of skin diseases of the pediatric population in the Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey. We sought to investigate the skin diseases of the pediatric population in this region. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 3957 patients, age range 0-17 years, in the Dermatology Outpatient Clinic. The patients were classified according to the age groups: infancy (0-2 years), preschool period (3-5 years), school period (6-11 years), and adolescent period (12-17 years). Skin diseases were evaluated under 17 disease subgroups. Of 3957 pediatric patients (2109 female and 1848 male), 695 (17.56%) were in infancy, 465 (11.75%) were in preschool period, 823 (20.8%) were in school period, and 1974 (49.89%) were in adolescent period. Eczematous diseases (30.12%) were the most common skin disease group, followed by acne (26.35%), infectious diseases (19.03%), pigmentation disorders (4.06%), other-unclassified diseases (3.58%), xerosis cutis (2.8%), urticaria (2.68%), hair diseases (2.72%), papulosquamous diseases (1.74%), photodermatoses (1.41%), melanocytic lesions (1.28%), sweat gland diseases (1.23%), tumors-cysts (1.03%), vascular malformations (0.68%), nail diseases (0.58%), genodermatoses (0.48%), and vasculitis (0.15%), respectively. The high prevalence of eczematous and infectious dermatoses were attributed to the crowded family structure, low socio-economic status, play and cleaning materials, and poor hygiene. The relatively low prevalence of atopic dermatitis in our study has been associated with increased breastfeeding in infancy and feeding with natural products in the region.