TEENAGERS SAY they would pay up to $300 (€203.80) never to have acne, a study into the psychological impact of the skin disease, published today, has found.
Dr Cynthia Chen and her colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, asked 266 teenagers with acne how much of their lifetime they would give up or how much they would pay never to have had acne.
On the willingness to pay issue, the teenagers said they would pay an average of $275 to never have acne and some $100 to be completely clear of the skin disease. Parents said they would pay $250 for their child never to have acne and $100 if their child could be 100 per cent cured.
Teenagers who rated their acne as more severe were prepared to pay more to have it successfully treated than those with a less severe form. The severe acne group said they would trade more time (life expectancy) than the less-severe group to be acne-free.
Acne vulgaris affects almost all adolescents to some degree. Severe acne may cause significant scarring of the face, chest and upper back. Acne has been shown to cause significant psychological distress among teenagers, including anxiety, depression and lack of self-esteem.
The study, in the current issue of Archives of Dermatology, is one of the first to use a measure of health outcome preference called health state utilities to assess the impact of acne on adolescents. The time trade-off and willingness to pay indices measure how patients value various disease-related outcomes.
"Knowledge of these patient preferences may help dermatologists balance clinical trial results with patients' expectations of therapy," the authors said. "It has also been suggested that the incidence of scarring from facial acne approaches 95 per cent. Thus, adolescents' marked preference for total clearance over partial clearance or clearance with scarring suggests that physicians must weigh high patient expectations against clinical data concerning efficacy," they said.
In an accompanying editorial, Dr Marta VanBeek of the University of Iowa said that in an environment in which health expenditures were allocated by non-medics, "it is critical to demonstrate the burden of skin disease relative to non-dermatologic disease to funding sources, government agencies and the lay public. Fundamentally, utilities measure true patient preferences, uninhibited by physician assumptions. Such measurement re-focuses on the primary goal of improving the care of our patients."