Epidemiology of psoriasis in the years 2008–2015 in Poland

Introduction
Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease. It occurs almost all over the world. More cases of psoriasis are seen among Caucasians than in other races. It occurs rarely, or not at all, in Aboriginal Australians or Native Americans.

Objective
To analyze the prevalence of psoriasis in Polish voivodships in the years 2008–2015 considering gender, age, place of residence (urban – rural) and clinical form of the disease.

Material and methods
The research was based on demographic data collected from the Central Statistical Office (GUS) in the years 2008–2015 for voivodships. The data concern all patients with psoriasis who were consulted during the study period or were hospitalized in institutions providing dermatological services under the National Health Fund (NFZ) contract. The patients were divided into several groups according to gender, age and place of residence. All groups were compared quantitatively and the results were presented in figures.

Results
Based on the collected data, as many as 1,147,279 patients with psoriasis benefited from dermatological services in the years 2008–2015. People aged 41–60 years mostly suffered from psoriasis, with a slight predominance of women living in cities. There was also a noticeable increase in psoriasis patients treated in hospital conditions during the study period.

Conclusions
The collected data provided a preliminary estimate of prevalence of psoriasis in the years 2008–2015 at about 2.99%. However, the data presented in this paper need further research.