Frequency of Stress, Anxiety and Depression in Patients with Alopecia Areata and Control Group Referring to Skin Clinics of Yazd City in 2017

Alopecia areata is a fairly common disease characterized by patchy aria of hair loss. The role of psychological factors in the occurrence of alopecia areata has long been discussed. The present study was conducted to determine the frequency of stress and anxiety and depression in the patients with alopecia areata in Yazd City in 2017.

This study was a cross-sectional study and 50 patients with alopecia areata in Yazd were compared with 50 in the control group in the year 2016. Sampling method was a census and variables, including sex, age, education level, duration of lesion, frequency of relapse, and location of the disease were collected and recorded using a questionnaire. The depression anxiety stress-scale (DASS) (Dass11) questionnaire was used for scoring anxiety, stress and depression. For analyzing the collected data were entered into SPSS version 13.

The results of the study showed that the mean age of the participants in the study was 30.27 ± 8.7, the mean duration of lesion was 23.5±53.52 months and the mean recurrence rate was 1.4±2.2. From 100 participants in the study, 36 (36%) were women and 64 (64%) were men. The mean score of depression (6.8 vs 4.6), anxiety score (6.08 vs 3.5) and stress score (10.06 vs 8.06) were found to be significantly different between the two groups. Also, in women and in the age range of 17-29 years, the mean of depression and anxiety scores was significantly different in the two groups (P-value <0.05).

According to results, it can be concluded that the frequency of depression, anxiety and stress in the patients with alopecia areata is significantly more than the control group.