Skin Complications from Soap and Cream Use among Elderly Persons in the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital

Background: The components of skin care products (soaps and creams) are left on the skin for extended periods of time. It has however been observed in most of the dermatology clinics in our environment that the frequent use of toilet or medicated germicidal soaps on diseased skin increases the inflammation and irritation of the skin

Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study of 126 elderly respondents who presented at different wards of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. A PROFORMA data collection sheet was used to collate demographic information, dermatological complications, and the use of soaps and creams from the participants.

Results: Xerosis was the most common skin complication (54.64%), followed by itching (27.84%) and post bleaching-syndrome (17.53%).The most commonly used was moisturizing cream (32.8%) followed by bleaching cream (16.0%). However, 49 (39.2%) of the participants indicated they did not use any specific cream and 15 (12.0%) indicated that they did not use any cream. The distribution of types of cream and gender was not statistically significant (p = 0.439). The distribution of bathing soap used by the participants showed that the most common bathing soap was moisturizing/toilet soap (54.4%), followed by the use of no specific soap (25.6%) and medicated/bleaching soap (19.2%). The distribution of postbleaching syndrome was significantly associated with a relatively high use of bleaching/ medicated soaps by 47.1% of the persons with post-bleaching syndrome. (p = 0.024). The distribution of postbleaching syndrome and gender was found to be statistically significant (p = 0.042), with the post-bleaching syndrome been more common among female participants (64.7%).

Conclusion: The was a considerable occurrence of post bleaching syndrome among the participants. In a bid to improve skin care among the elderly, it is important that the geriatric population are educated on the appropriate applications of skin care products for an improved quality of life.