Association of socio‐demographic factors and personal hygiene with infectious childhood dermatoses

BACKGROUND: Paediatric dermatoses vary vastly from adult dermatoses in terms of clinical presentation, management, and prognosis thereby generating special interest in this field. Many factors like geographical area, climatic exposure, seasons, culture, socioeconomic factors, hygiene, dietary habits, literacy influences pattern of skin diseases in children resulting in marked variation in prevalence and pattern. OBJECTIVES: This study aims to find out association of socio‐demographic factors and personal hygiene with infectious childhood dermatoses. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a hospital based cross‐sectional study. All children (0–14 years) attending Dermatology outpatient clinics were enroled. Proforma was prepared to assess the socio‐demographic factors and personal hygiene in the local context. Chi‐square test was applied to find the association of the baseline variables with infectious dermatoses. RESULTS: A total of 364 children were enroled with mean age of 6.97 ± 4.23 years. Females (52.5%) were slightly more than males (47.5%). There were 201 (55.2%) infectious and 163 (44.8%) non‐infectious dermatoses. Bacterial infections were the most common group (18.7%), followed by dermatitis and eczemas (14.0%) and viral infections (13.7%). Lower educational status of mother (p = 0.025), lower monthly family income (p = 0.008), lower socioeconomic status (p = 0.015) and less frequent bathing habits (p = 0.014) were associated with increased risk of infective dermatoses. CONCLUSION: Infections and infestations were the most common paediatric dermatoses in our Outpatient Department. Female education, upliftment of socioeconomic status of family and improving personal hygiene may reduce the risk of skin infections in children.