Scabies cases at a dermatological outpatient clinic in Türkiye: Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: Annually_, scabies affects more than 400 million people worldwide and is an important public health problem. This study investigated the socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with scabies at a major dermatologic clinic in Turkiye in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methodology: A retrospective evaluation was performed on outpatients diagnosed with scabies between 2014 and 2022. Statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0.

Results: In total, 759 of the 48,381 patients (1.6%) who visited the dermatology outpatient clinic were diagnosed with scabies. The incidence rate of scabies was 0.5–0.9% before the pandemic, which increased to 3.1–4.4% in 2020–2022. Cases were more common in October–December (36.5%), and 57.9% of patients were 18–44 years old. Those aged 1–6 years showed an increased rate of scabies from 3% to 7.8% during the pandemic. There was no significant difference according to gender or nationality. All patients complained of itching, and 35% had a history of contact with individuals who were diagnosed with scabies. The recurrence rate was 27.3%. Lesions of 73.1% of patients showed a generalized distribution, as well as local lesions on the hands (7.9%), genital area (6.4%), trunk (4.0%), arms (3.0%), legs (2.8%), feet (1.6%), and head (1.2%).

Conclusions: The results emphasize that scabies can develop regardless of age, gender, and ethnicity, and periods such as pandemics may delay diagnosis and treatment, leading to a higher occurrence of the disease.