An Analysis of the Correlation Between Alopecia and Chief Complaints

The study from 2011 investigated the correlation between alopecia and various symptoms in 300 patients at hair loss clinics in Seoul, Korea, using data from 289 participants after excluding outliers. Researchers employed questionnaires, logistic regression, and decision trees to analyze the data. They found a significant correlation between hair loss and symptoms such as dry hair, seborrheic scalp and skin, addiction to tobacco and/or coffee, anxiety, nausea, indigestion, and facial flushing. The decision tree model predicted hair loss with higher accuracy (81.31% in training, 78.13% in test data) than logistic regression (78.20% accuracy) and had a 90.70% response rate among the top 30% of patients. The study suggests these symptoms could aid in early medical intervention and that data mining can improve patient treatment satisfaction. However, it notes the limitation of focusing on patients already experiencing alopecia, which may confound primary and secondary symptoms, and recommends further epidemiological and clinical data research.