Abstract
Male baldness is physically benign though it is increasingly described as a “disease” based on claims that it is profoundly distressing. The medicalization of baldness was assessed using data extracted from a review of 37 male baldness psychosocial impact studies. Findings revealed most studies likely had commercial influences (78%), represented baldness as a disease (77%), were conducted on biased samples (68%), and advocated for baldness products/services (60%), omitting their limitations (68%). Health psychologists should challenge baldness medicalization so that men can make informed choices about what, if anything, they do with their baldness.
Highlights
Psychological impact of balding: “Independent of age and gender, patients diagnosed with androgenetic alopecia undergo significant impairment in their quality of life” (Blumeyer et al, 2011: s1).2 Yet this guidance relies on just two, heavily cited, studies (Alfonso et al, 2005; Cash et al, 1993) whose results do not support the assertion that baldness brings about significant psychological distress
Balding men must give informed consent if electing to use commercial interventions and “informed consent means being informed about medicalization and disease mongering” (Moynihan et al, 2002: 900)
Commercial interventions were occasionally implicitly recommended: “The present study suggests that oral finasteride improves the QOL of patients but does not necessarily alleviate their anxieties
Summary
This paper is based on a systematic review (registered here: Frith and Jankowski, 2020; https://osf.io/uvzp9), which examined the published evidence of baldness’psychosocial impact among men. The Psychology Cross Search electronic database was systematically searched on the 9th November 2020 by combining terms for baldness, men, and psychosocial outcomes without date parameters but limited to English-language texts. This paper is based on a systematic review (registered here: Frith and Jankowski, 2020; https://osf.io/uvzp9), which examined the published evidence of baldness’psychosocial impact among men.. The Psychology Cross Search electronic database was systematically searched on the 9th November 2020 by combining terms for baldness, men, and psychosocial outcomes without date parameters but limited to English-language texts. Study selection was performed independently by both authors in three screening stages from titles to full text papers. For the purposes of this paper, data regarding indicators of medicalization (conflicts of interest, baldness representation, sample biases, and intervention implications) identified through previous research (Conrad, 2007; Harvey, 2013; Jankowski, 2014; Moynihan et al, 2002) were extracted from the 37 studies in the systematic review.
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