Retrospective Analysis of Prisoner Patients Presenting with Dermatological Complaints to a Tertiary Dermatology Referral Center

Abstract

Providing dermatologic care to prisoners can be challenging due to their poor compliance to treatment and difficulty for the follow-up visits. The aim of this study is to evaluate the dermatological diseases among male prisoners in Turkey and to assess the relationship of the age, education status, addiction status and body mass indexes of the prisoners to the primary dermatologic complaint and the definitive diagnosis. This is a retrospective study performed in the dermatology outpatient clinic of Başakş ehir Çam and Sakura City Hospital; male prisoner patients who have been brought to the clinic have been included. Each patient was evaluated by a dermatologist, history was taken precisely including the substance habits and educational status. A total of 175 male patients were included in the study. A statistically significant relationship was found between the use of alcohol and acute skin findings (p=0.002). The patients with the highest body mass indexes were diagnosed with dermatitis, lowest body mass indexes were diagnosed with benign and malignant tumoral lesions (p=0.030). This study has revealed that there is a positive association between alcohol abuse and frequency of viral infections; and a negative association between body mass index and skin cancer risk.