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eISSN: 2084-9893
ISSN: 0033-2526
Dermatology Review/Przegląd Dermatologiczny
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4/2021
vol. 108
 
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Letter to the Editor

Shame and self-esteem in androgenic alopecia patients

Joanna Furmańska
1
,
Ryszard W. Żaba
2
,
Teresa N. Rzepa
3
,
Przemysław Kubaszewski
4

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland
  2. Department of Dermatology and Venereology, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poznan, Poland
  3. Psychotherapy Centre SensTerapia, Poznan, Poland
  4. University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poznan Campus, Poznan, Poland
Dermatol Rev/Przegl Dermatol 2021, 108, 314-316
Online publish date: 2021/12/13
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Quality of hair has long been a major element of self-image, influencing one’s convictions regarding beauty and physical attractiveness. Even the smallest disorders in this area have a negative effect on people’s well-being and general mood, which in turn contributes to a decreased self-esteem and quality of life. This is accompanied by unpleasant emotions such as embarrassment, shame, anxiety, apprehension and fear of being scrutinised by other people, and in a long-term perspective – phobias, psychosomatic diseases, as well as depressive, alexithymic, and obsessive-compulsive disorders [1–3].
We decided to assess shame and self-esteem as well as identify relationships between these two in men suffering from androgenic alopecia.
The study was performed in two stages. First, in consultation with physicians, a list of 35 most shameful diseases was compiled. Following an initial research study involving 314 persons, a short list of 10 diseases was established, which were subsequently assessed by 219 persons by means of a scale ranging from 1 to 10 (from the lowest to the highest level of shame) [4]. The second stage of the study additionally involved 39 androgenic alopecia men aged from 19 to 66 (M = 35.8). The male patients filled in the originally developed survey comprising 6 half-open questions based on the several-year medical and psychotherapeutic experience of the research team. Moreover, the patients filled in the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES) [5]. The study was approved by the Committee for Bioethics of the Poznan University of Medical Sciences (200/16).
Results show that out of the 10 short-listed diseases, the most shameful one, according to the androgenic alopecia patients, is AIDS with the result of 7.9 points (79%). After that, in reference to AIDS as the most (in 100%) shameful disease, they evaluated the level of shamefulness of their own disease to be 32% on average (SD = 30). The patients have stated that shame mainly serves the function of signalling what is moral and what is not, and of hindering own spontaneity (25.4% responses each) (fig. 1). It was found that there is no statistically relevant correlation (p > 0.05) between the level of shame experienced because of one’s illness and the functions assigned to the emotion of shame. However, a statistically relevant negative correlation (p < 0.05) was found between the self-esteem level and two functions of shame, i.e. hindering the disclosure of truth about...


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