Therapeutic Itinerary and Management of Patients Treated for Acne at the Dermatology and Venereology Department of National University Hospital Center Hubert Koutoukou Maga of Cotonou (Benin)

Introduction: Acne is an inflammatory disease of the pilosebaceous follicle that most often appears during puberty but also in some adults. Most acne patients resort to self-medication before consulting a dermatologist. This practice can have a negative impact on the progression and/or aesthetic prognosis of this condition. The aim of this study was to describe the therapeutic itinerary and management of patients followed for acne at the University Clinic of Dermatology and Venereology. Patients and Method: This was a retrospective and prospective longitudinal study, both descriptive and analytical, running from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2022 (retrospective phase), and from 1 January 2023 to 30 September 2023 (prospective phase). Results: A total of 768 acne patients were included, with 667 enrolled during the retrospective phase and 101 during the prospective phase. The hospital frequency of acne was 5.6%. There was a female predominance with a sex ratio of 0.4. The majority of patients (83.2%) had practiced self-medication before consulting at the National University Hospital Center Hubert Koutoukou Maga (NUHC-HKM) of Cotonou, among which 23.3% used lemon as a traditional. Inflammatory acne was predominant in 89.2% of patients. Topical treatment at the NUHC-HKM dermatology unit was based on tretinoin for 50.3% of patients and dermo-cosmetics for 97.1%. Doxycycline tablets were prescribed to 92.2% of treated patients. The patient compliance rate improved significantly over time, rising from 53.5% at the first follow-up visit to 95% by the third (p = 0.036). Conclusion: Self-medication was the main recourse in the therapeutic itinerary of acne patients. Local treatments were more frequently prescribed at the NUHC-HKM dermatology unit than systemic treatments. Most patients had good therapeutic adherence.