Abstract
There has been a stigma attached to diseases of the skin for centuries. A healthy normal skin is essential for a person’s physical and mental well-being and sense of self –confidence. It has been estimated that approximately one third of the patients presenting with the dermatological disorders have some psychological co-morbidity (Rosenberg, 1960). Literature has shown that patients with vitiligo and acne are mostly affected by their psychosocial wellbeing, whereas psoriasis and atopic dermatitis patients are affected by both physical and psychosocial well-being. Self-evaluative salience reflects the importance of appearance to one’s sense of self-worth. A person who is self-evaluative define or measure themselves and their self- worth by their physical appearance and it deem influential in their social and emotional experiences. The present study aimed to evaluate any difference between appearance schema self-evaluative salience among the patients of psoriasis, acne, vitiligo and their controlled counterparts. Total 200 samples, 50 patients (Mean age = 32.8 years, SD= 3.97 years) for each group were chosen following purposive sampling technique from Department of Dermatology, R. G. Kar Medical College, Kolkata, India. The Appearance Schemas Inventory-Revised (ASI-R) was used to measure evaluation of appearance schema of the participants. Results indicate a significantly higher salience of self-evaluative appearance schema in patients with acne, followed by patients with psoriasis, vitiligo and their controlled counterparts. The findings indicate that the control group outperforms their clinical counterparts significantly in self evaluative appearance schema measure. The effect size measure indicates a small impact of dermatological disorder on self-evaluative appearance schema, indicating though prevails the stigma of dermatological disorders in our society; the patients acquire effective coping strategies to boost their self esteem. Their body image is not primarily guided by evaluation of their appearances. To support this view, it is found that though among these three diseases social stigma is associated more with vitiligo, but the patients with acne have a higher self-evaluative appearance schema. The pattern of the effects of dermatological disorder on self evaluative appearance schema is discussed
Highlights
A relationship between dermatological conditions and psychological factors had long been observed (Ahmed, Leon, Butler, & Reichenberg, 2013; Ongenae, Beelaert, van Geel, & Naeyaert, 2006)
From fairy tales to moral stories, from infant rhymes to adult novels, society teaches us to be over concerned by appearance, be it from Helen of Troy or Cinderella and her ugly step sisters or Kiranmala and her terrifying wicked step mother and like, literature in all transcripts of the world shows that
One of the major characteristics of human being which differentiate them from other animals is stigmatization by appearance
Summary
A relationship between dermatological conditions and psychological factors had long been observed (Ahmed, Leon, Butler, & Reichenberg, 2013; Ongenae, Beelaert, van Geel, & Naeyaert, 2006). Acne vulgaris is associated with significant psychological distress, regardless of their acne severity patient with this disease have substantial distress and preoccupation related to their facial appearance (Bowe, Leyden, Crerand, Sarwer & Margolis, 2007). The quality of life is closely elated to the patients' apprehensions about their disease, psychosocial adjustment, and psychiatric morbidity, rather than the clinical severity of the condition itself (Choi, Kim, Whang, Lee, Hann & Shin, 2010). A detailed survey of the available research findings point out that though acne, psoriasis, and vitiligo as well as the other psychosocial variables ( quality of life, self-esteem, bodyimage appearance schema, body-image coping strategies and body image cognitive distortion) have been addressed in numerous research findings, there is still the need to study pattern of the way these patients evaluate their appearance schema and its effect on the psychosocial aspect of a person. In absence of sufficient reported study in Indian context this research is an attempt to unveil the persona of a patient with skin disorder and evaluate the possible difference, if any, among three types of skin disorders
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