Environmental Stress But Not Subjective Distress in Children or Adolescents With Alopecia Areata

    March 2011 in “ Journal of psychosomatic research ”
    Francisco Díaz-Atienza, Manuel Gurpegui
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    TLDR Kids with alopecia areata may experience more stress but not necessarily feel more anxious or depressed than others.
    The study investigated the relationship between environmental stress, subjective distress, and alopecia areata (AA) in 31 children and adolescents with AA, comparing them to 23 patients with epilepsy and 25 healthy siblings. The findings indicated that AA patients experienced more stressful life events and had higher urinary excretion of catecholamines than their healthy siblings. Compared to epilepsy patients, AA patients were more likely to come from single-parent families and perceived less family expressiveness. However, there were no significant differences in anxiety and depression scores among the three groups. The study concluded that alopecia areata in young patients might be triggered by stressful life events, particularly in the context of certain family dynamics or biological vulnerabilities, despite the absence of conscious distress.
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