Abstract: Objective To investigate the influence of onyc homycosis on patients' quality of life.Methods A semi-structured questionnaire was used for the assessment of patients' quality of life in a multicenter survey.The questionnaire was filled out by dermatologists,who probed questionnaire items one by one to patients.Results The study included 55602 patients with onychomycosis. Of them,47638 patients(22616 male,47.5%;25022 female,52.5%)completed the questionnaire.55.4% of the investigated patients suffered from fingernail onychomycosis,and 70.6%suffered from toenail on ychomycosis.26% of patients had both fingernail and toenail onychomycosis.Onychomycosis had a significantly negative impact on patients' quality of life.Of the 47638 patients,85.3% worried about their health,83.1% appeared to have emotional disorder,79.5%with thinking disorder,and 73.3%with problems in social communic ation.It was shown that onychomycosis had the greatest negativ e effect in those patients aged 14-30and during the first 6 months to lear after onset.Female patients usually experienced greater negative impact than that of males with problems of subjective health feeling(P<0.001),thinking(P<0.001),emotion(P<0.001) and social communication(P<0.001).The more the number of nails involved,the more the negative effect on the quality of life.Conclusion Onychomycosis is not only a patholog ical disease and cosmetic problem,but related with the deteriorated quality of life also. Patients with onychomycosis appear to have a decreased subjective health feeling and other psychological problems with thinking,emotion and social communication.

Key words: Onychomycosis, Quality of life