Quality of life assessment in male patients with androgenetic alopecia: result of a prospective, multicenter study

Abstract

Background: Androgenetic alopecia (AGA) is a common hair loss disease with genetic predisposition among men and women, and it may commence at any age after puberty. It may significantly affect a variety of psychological and social aspects of one's life and the individual's overall quality of life (QoL).

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the QoL of AGA patients and discover the factors that can influence the QoL of AGA patients, including previous experience in non-medical hair care, reasons for hospital visits, age, duration, and the severity of AGA.

Methods: A total of 998 male patients with AGA were interviewed, using the Hair Specific Skindex-29 to evaluate the QoL of AGA patients.

Results: The results of the Hair Specific Skindex-29 on patients with AGA were as follows: symptom scale: 26.3±19.5, function scale: 24.0±20.1, emotion scale: 32.1±21.8, and global score: 27.3±19.1. According to this assessment, QoL was more damaged if the patient had severe alopecia, a longer duration of AGA, younger age, had received previous non-medical hair care, and visited the hospital for AGA treatment.

Conclusion: This study showed that AGA could harmfully affect the patients' QoL. These findings indicate that dermatologists should address these QoL issues when treating patients with alopecia.

Keywords: Alopecia; Androgenetic; Quality of life.

Fig. 1

Correlation between single variables and QoL in the symptom, function and emotion scales. (A) Patients who had experienced previous non-medical hair care had increasing Skindex scores on the symptom, function and emotion scales (p<0.05). (B) Patients who visited the hospital for AGA treatment had increasing scores on the function and emotion scales (p<0.05). (C) The group aged under 30 had increasing scores on all scales (p<0.01). (D) The group with longer durations of AGA had increasing scores on all scales (p<0.001). (E) Also, the severe group had increasing scores on all scales (p<0.05). QoL: quality of life, AGA: androgenetic alopecia.

Fig. 2

Correlation between variables and QoL in the symptom, function and emotion scales. (A) The symptom scale correlated with only previous experience in non-medical hair care, younger age and a longer duration of AGA (p<0.05). (B, C) The function and emotion scales of Hair Specific Skindex-29 correlated with all the clinical profiles, including previous experience in non-medical hair care, hospital visits to treat AGA, younger age, a longer duration of AGA and severe AGA (p<0.05). Especially, patients with a longer duration of AGA showed the most highest level of β in all scale (p<0.001). It result demonstrates that a longer duration of AGA is determined to be strongly correlated with poorer QoL. QoL: quality of life, AGA: androgenetic alopecia.

Fig. 3

Global scale of Hair Specific Skindex-29. The results of the Hair Specific Skindex-29 on patients with AGA were as follows: QoL was more damaged if the patient had received previous non-medical hair care, visited the hospital for AGA treatment, younger age, a longer duration of AGA, and had severe alopecia (^*p<0.05, ^**p<0.01, ^***p<0.001). AGA: androgenetic alopecia, QoL: quality of life, tx: treatment.