Alexithymia in alopecia areata and vitiligo

Aim: The etiopathogenesis of alopesi areata (AA) and vitiligo is not clear, but stress and psychological factors are thought to play as triggers. Psychiatric disorders like anxiety and depression are more frequent in both diseases. Alexithymia, which can be defined as ?difficulty in recognizing and verbal explanation of the feelings? is expected to be more frequent in patients with AA and vitiligo. They may have problems to describe their feelings and to cope with stressful life events due to their alexithymic personality. In this study, to determine the traumatic events, anxiety, depression, alexithymia and anxiety sensitivity was aimed. The effective factors for alexithymia in patients with AA and vitiligo were also investigated.Material and methods: Ninety patients with vitiligo, 51 patients with AA and 90 age and sex matched healthy controls composed the study group. A form for sociodemographic and clinical data, Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20, Anxiety Sensitivity Index-III (ADI-III), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and a form for traumatic events were administrated in patients and controls.Results: There was not a statistically significant difference for anxiety, depression and alexithymia between patients and control groups. ADI-III levels in patients with vitiligo were higher than patients with alopecia areata. In vitiligo, alexithymia and anxiety sensitivity levels were increasing with older age and later onset. The level of education was negatively correlated with anxiety and depression in patients with vitiligo and with depression in patients with AA. Anxiety sensitivity was found to be positively correlated with anxiety, depression and alexithymia in patients with vitiligo, and anxiety and alexithymia in patients with AA. Women in vitiligo group were more anxious, depressive and alexithymic, while alopecic women had higher anxiety and depression scores. In univariate analyses with risk evaluation, age, ADI-III score and onset age was statistically found to be significant in vitiligo. However in the regression model, ADI-III was the only variable that remained statistically significant. In the AA group, gender, suffering from lesions, anxiety and depression scores were significant variables in univariate analyses with risk evaluation. But anxiety and depression remained to be significant in the regression model.Conclusion: Anxiety sensitivity was found to be a related parameter in patients with vitiligo and AA. On the other hand, the impact of alexithymia on both diseases could not be shown. They may be important in the ethiopathogenesis, clinical course and treatment outcomes in these two diseases as the chronic psychopathologic parameters. More detailed studies with larger patient numbers are required on this topic.