Changes in incidence and age distribution of scabies: A retrospective cohort study in a tertiary hospital

Abstract

Aim: Scabies is a pruritic skin disease caused by an ectoparasite named sarcoptes scabies var hominis. It sometimes makes endemics depending on lifestyles of communities. In this study, we tried to point out incidence and demographic factors for scabies in recent years.Methods: A retrospective review was carried out in patients with scabies diagnosis between 2013 January and 2018 July at dermatology outpatient clinic of Karabuk Research and Training Hospital. Age and gender of patients, and season of diagnosis were recorded from hospital database.Results: In this study, we found that incidence of scabies increased from 0.4 % to 1% between study period (r=0.886, p=0.001 ). Mean age of scabies patients decreased from 49.7 years to 31.4 years within 5 years (r=-0.753, p=0.006). There were more female patients than male patients (56% vs 44%), and their mean age was older than males (44 years vs 37 years) (p=0.001). Conclusion: Scabies cases are increasing in number and mean age of patients are decreasing gradually at recent years.