The relationship between acne severity and sleep quality and depression

AIM: Acne vulgaris causes various psychiatric problems, especially self-confidence, depression and anxiety, and changes the sleep pattern and quality of the patients. Skin diseases, which are generally not life-threatening, cause significant psychosocial disorders, leading to sleep disturbance, fatigue, social isolation, emotional/sexual difficulties, and impair the quality of life of individuals. It is important to combat existing physical and psychosocial disorders in these diseases, to improve quality of life and to get better treatment response. There are very few studies in the literature showing that acne is effective or ineffective on sleep. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of severe acne on sleep quality, depression and quality of life of the individual. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted with 219 patients over the age of 18 who applied to Sakarya University Training and Research Hospital Dermatology Clinic. Sociodemographic data form questioning the patients' age, gender, educational status, marital status, employment status, skin diseases, accompanying systemic diseases, drugs they use, smoking and alcohol use, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to measure sleep quality, depression level and quality of life, Beck depression scale and Dermatology Quality of Life Index were used. The acne severity of the patients was calculated with the Global Acne Grading Scale. RESULTS: No statistically significant correlation was found between the patients' global acne scores and dermatological quality of life score, Pittsburgh Sleep quality and Beck depression score (p= 0.416, 0.684, 0.929, respectively). Acne severity was found to be higher in men than in women (p=0.013). The prevalence of moderate and severe depression was found to be higher in female patients than in males (p=0.018). CONCLUSION: Acne severity was not associated with sleep quality, depression and quality of life. More work is needed on this subject.