Development of an Assessment Tool for Psychological Health and Help-Seeking in Alopecia Areata Patients in Underserved Communities
November 2023
in “
The journal of investigative dermatology/Journal of investigative dermatology
”
TLDR The document concludes that a new questionnaire to assess mental health in alopecia patients shows low rates of seeking mental health services and support groups.
The document describes the development of an assessment tool to explore psychological health and mental health help-seeking behaviors in alopecia areata (AA) patients from underserved communities. The tool, a 27-item Likert-type questionnaire, was based on Andersen's behavioral model of health services. It was created with input from six AA patients through telephone interviews and refined through two rounds of feedback from a six-member expert panel, enhancing its face and content validity. The study highlights that only 31.2% of AA patients reported seeking mental health services and 29% attended a support group, indicating low treatment rates and potential disparities in mental healthcare access. The newly developed instrument is ready for further validation and reliability studies to predict mental health help-seeking behaviors in AA patients.
