Patients’ knowledge about psoriasis and its treatment has been randomly studied previously. The aim of the study is to investigate patients’ knowledge about psoriasis in relation to undergoing patient education in the context of climate therapy (CT). The psoriasis knowledge questionnaire (PKQ) was used in a follow-up pre–post study design of Norwegian patients with psoriasis at the age of 20 years and older undergoing CT at Gran Canaria (Spain). Patients completed the PKQ and provided selected demographic, clinical and health information before (T1), immediately after (T2), and 3 months after (T3) CT. Disease severity was assessed using the psoriasis area and severity index (PASI). 254 psoriasis patients were included (74%). The PKQ score improved significantly from T1 to T2 and T3 ( for both comparisons). Although patient’s knowledge improved, further research should use gold standard designs (experiments) to study the effects of educational interventions in different contexts. 1. Introduction Knowledge about a disease and its treatment alone does not change the attitudes and health behaviour related to living with chronic illness. Nevertheless, knowledge about a disease and its treatment is important for coping with the symptoms and living well with a chronic illness. Integration of knowledge, skills, and values enhances an individual’s health competence, which in turn may affect the patient’s involvement with their disease, health, work, coping, and quality of life [1]. To our knowledge, few studies have been published on psoriasis patients’ knowledge about the disease, in particular in the past few decades. Research has shown that living with psoriasis can be difficult and can affect different aspects of quality of life [2, 3]. Poor adherence to prescribed treatment is also a major problem in this patients group [4, 5]. It is reasonable to think that focusing on knowledge about the pathogenesis and treatment of psoriasis may increase the patient’s perception of control and attention to aggravating factors and may thus increase patient’s compliance with treatment and positive lifestyle habits. Lanigan and Layton [6] used a 22-item knowledge questionnaire developed by Lanigan and Farber [7] to assess the level of knowledge and information sources used by patients with psoriasis. Although the patients knew many core facts about psoriasis, they did not know a number of facts about the disease, which may be valuable in improving self-management. Renzi et al. [8] studied the levels of participation, satisfaction, and knowledge among patients with
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