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Majority of dermatology patients value photography for clinical, education use

A majority of patients felt the use of photography in the dermatologic setting enhanced medical care, according to study findings.

Researchers recruited 400 patients from various ages, ethnic/racial groups and socioeconomic levels from four dermatology setting in New York City to answer a survey on photography practices in clinical and educational dermatology.

Overall, 88.7% of patients surveyed agreed that the use of photography enhanced their quality of care, according to the researchers.

Although there was no association between gender, age, clinic site or socioeconomic status and the general impression of medical photography, race did play a role. The researchers found 19.7% of Latino patients and 12.5% of black patients reported they did not agree that clinical photography could enhance care.

Patients were significantly more comfortable with the use of their photographs for medical care, research and teaching if they were unidentifiable.

Patient age also had an effect; older patients were generally more permissive than younger patients for their images to be utilized for teaching purposes, according to the researchers.

As far as consent, respondents preferred permission for photographs to be obtained in writing (78.4%) over verbal consent (14.1%), with (5.8%) of respondents selecting both options.

More than 94% of patients were most comfortable when physicians took their clinical photographs rather than a nurse or student. Additionally, patients were significantly more comfortable (90.3%) when someone of the same gender took their photograph in the clinical setting, according to the researchers.

Disclosure: The authors have no relevant financial disclosures.