Stefanou, G, Kourlaba G, Vamvakousis E, et al. Ital J Dermatol Venerol. 2022. doi: 10.23736/S2784-8671.22.07258-9. 

Background: Data regarding patients' satisfaction, individuals' therapeutic needs and their perception regarding the treatment benefit might provide useful insights for the unmet medical need from patients' perspective. To the best of our knowledge, no data are available in Greece investigating in depth moderate to severe psoriasis while there is a scarcity of studies in the international literature. The objective of this study was to capture patients' satisfaction and perception about treatment benefits in patients with moderate to severe psoriasis in Greece.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in March - April of 2021. Eligible to participate were adults with moderate to severe psoriasis, members of the Greek patient association EPIDERMIA. A structured questionnaire including socio-demographic factors, history of disease, comorbidities, current treatment, severity self-assessment and impact in daily activities, treatment adherence, treatment satisfaction, and Patient Benefit Index (PBI), was developed. Univariate parametric and non-parametric tests along with generalized linear models were applied.

Results: A total of 314 adults with moderate to severe psoriasis responded. The 97.5% of the participants reported that they were under treatment, while 41.1% of them mentioned none or little/quite satisfaction by their current treatment, with the most frequently reported reason of dissatisfaction to be the "no satisfactory improvement since treatment onset". The most important therapeutic goals from patient perspective were to "be healed of all skin defects", and to "get better skin quickly". The therapeutic benefit for these goals was found to be moderate (55% and 67%, respectively). Multivariate analysis confirmed that treatment type and psoriasis severity were factors independently associated with treatment satisfaction, and PBI score.

Conclusions: The results of this survey reveal the unmet medical need for moderate to severe psoriasis from patient perspective, since 2/5 patients stated that they are not much or very much satisfied with their current treatment, and more than half patients stated that the most important therapeutic goals (i.e., clean skin, early onset) for them are not achieved.