The Impact of Recent Life Events on Patients with Alopecia Areata: A Study from Iran

Alopecia areata 0.1%-0.2% of humans, occurring in both males and females. Initial presentation most commonly occurs in the late teenage years, early childhood, or young adulthood, but can happen with people of the ages. In the present study, we were to find any association between onset of alopecia areata (AA) and preceding emotional stress. Totally 47 patients diagnosed AA and 47 controls (healthy subjects matched on age and gender) enrolled to our study at the dermatology clinic of Hazrat Rasoul Akram hospital, Tehran, Iran. Participants were administered paykel's questionnaire for Recent Life Events, also demographic data of all subjects registered simultaneously. The distribution of alopecia in patients was as follow: head 30 (63.8%), beard 16 (34%), body 1 (2.1%). The total score of recent life events (last 12 months) was not different significantly between the alopecia patients (6.9±1.01) and the comparison subjects (7.12±0.91). p=0.95 Our results do not support the hypothesis that stressful life events associated to occurrence of alopecia areata.