Quality of life and psychosocial impact of scarring and non‐scarring alopecia in women

Abstract

Alopecia is a common dermatological condition with mostly cosmetic consequences that, nevertheless, has significant psychological and psychosocial impact. To assess the impact of alopecia on quality of life and certain psychological domains and to compare it between scarring and non-scarring alopecia in Greek adult women. Forty-four women, aged 18-70 years, with scarring (n = 19) or non-scarring alopecia (n = 25) were recruited. All patients were evaluated by Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (RSES) and UCLA Loneliness Scale (UCLA-LS). Women with scarring alopecia had higher scores in DLQI, HADS and UCLA- LS and lower scores in RSES, compared to women with non-scarring alopecia. A statistically significant difference between the two groups was documented for DLQI (p = 0.0067), HADS (p = 0.0008), and HADS-Anxiety (HADS-A) (p < 0.05) and HADS-Depression (HADS-D) (p < 0.01) subscales. The psychological burden is heavier and quality of life is more severely impaired among women with scarring alopecia compared with non-scarring alopecia, probably depicting the poorer prognosis of the former.