Shame and self-esteem in androgenic alopecia patients

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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