The inflammatory skin condition, psoriasis, can have a major impact on quality of life, however a new study has found that men are much more likely to suffer with severe psoriasis than women.

Swedish researchers looked at almost 5,500 patients, whose psoriasis had been measured using the Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI) - a standard measurement used to determine the severity of the disease.

They found that women tended to have significantly lower average PASI scores than men - 5.4 for women compared to 7.3 for men.

In fact, men were found to have more severe psoriasis compared to woman across all age groups and in all areas of the body, except for the head.

The researchers believe this may explain why men tend to require more treatment when it comes to this condition than women.

"For over 70 years, psoriasis researchers have speculated that women have less severe psoriasis compared to men. Our study is the first to investigate sex differences in psoriasis severity using the golden standard of severity measurement, the PASI score," they commented.

Details of these findings are published in the American Journal of Clinical Dermatology.

Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin condition, which appears as pink or red raised patches on the skin. These patches, which are known as plaques, have a well-defined edge around them. They also have a scaly surface and can be large or small.

For more information on the condition, see our Psoriasis Clinic here