Investigation of the effect of stress and other factors on acne in medical students

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this research is to determine the effect of stress and other factors affecting acne among medical students. Methods: Between January 2023 and May 2023, 105 medical students were examined and the presence of acne was determined. The severity of acne was determined using the “Global Evaluation Acne Scale" (GEAS), the factors related to acne were questioned, and the “Perceived Stress Scale” (PSS) consisting of 14 items was filled by the medical students. Results: Acne prevalance was found to be 74.28%. There was a statistically significant relationship between acne and lower height, and female gender (p<0.05); high temperature-humidity, sweating, make-up, topical corticosteroid, milk, alcohol, sweet, chocolate, bakery product, age, weight, stress were not found to be correlated (p>0.05). Although not statistically significant, the stress scores were higher as acne severity increased. Conclusion: Stress reduction seems to be important in medical student to reduce acne prevalence. Short height was found to be associated with acne in our study group, and this could be investigated in future studies.