Association Between Hair Diseases and COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Stress: A Cross-Sectional Study Analysis
May 2022
in “
Frontiers in Medicine
”
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Studysummary This study observed that COVID-19-related stress and fear were potentially associated with an increased occurrence of hair diseases like telogen effluvium, alopecia areata, and seborrheic dermatitis among medical students in Bangladesh. Our plain-language summary of this paper — not a Tressless recommendation.
The cross-sectional study involved 404 undergraduate medical students in Bangladesh and investigated the link between hair diseases and COVID-19 pandemic-related stress. The study found that 61.13% of participants experienced telogen effluvium (TE), 24.75% had alopecia areata (AA), and 57.67% had scalp seborrheic dermatitis (SD). Over half of the participants reported COVID-19-related fear and traumatic stress symptoms (56.9% and 59.4% respectively), and 35.4% had high COVID-19-related student stress. Male participants were twice as likely to have AA than females, and smokers had a four times higher risk for developing TE and a three times higher risk for developing AA than non-smokers. The study suggests that the psychosocial stress caused by the pandemic may exacerbate or initiate these hair loss problems. However, a causal effect could not be established due to the study's limitations, including its self-reported and cross-sectional nature. Further longitudinal and exploratory studies are recommended.
