---
name: dermatology-assessment
description: Use when asked to administer, score, or explain a Dermatology Assessment — quality-of-life evaluation using the DLQI plus lesion characterization — grounded in FormExamples/form-examples.
---

# Dermatology Assessment

Dermatological quality of life evaluation using the DLQI (Dermatology
Life Quality Index) with lesion characterization.

## Scoring

**Instrument:** DLQI. Range 0–30.

- **0–1** — no effect on the patient's life.
- **2–5** — small effect.
- **6–10** — moderate effect.
- **11–20** — very large effect.
- **21–30** — extremely large effect.

## What it covers

Demographics; chief complaint; the DLQI questionnaire; lesion
characteristics; medical history; current medications; allergies;
family history; and social history.

## Common pitfalls

- **Treating DLQI as a severity-of-disease measure** — it measures
  quality-of-life *impact*, which doesn't always track linearly with
  clinical severity (a small but visible facial lesion can score higher
  impact than a larger but hidden one).
- **Skipping lesion characterization in favor of the questionnaire
  alone** — DLQI captures impact, not diagnosis; objective lesion
  description remains necessary for clinical assessment and monitoring
  over time.
- **Not tracking DLQI longitudinally** — a single DLQI score is less
  useful than a trend; repeat scoring at follow-up shows whether
  treatment is actually improving quality of life, not just lesion
  appearance.

## Learn more

- [FormExamples: dermatology-assessment](https://github.com/FormExamples/form-examples/tree/main/forms/dermatology-assessment) for the full implementation, clinical references, and worked examples.
- [[integumentary-assessment]] for a related skin/wound-focused assessment.