A cross‐sectional study of onychotillomania and onychophagia in graduate students

Abstract

Dear Editor, Onychotillomania and onychophagia are body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRB) involving the nail unit. Estimated prevalence is 23% to 47%, peaking in adolescence and decreasing with age, 1 and may be higher in populations experiencing stress, including students. 2 Our objectives were to assess prevalence, psychiatric co-morbidities, and treatment of onychophagia and onychotillomania in medical and graduate students. An anonymous, multiple-choice survey was emailed to medical and graduate students ages 18 to 45 years at Weill Cornell Medicine, February to March 2019, after Institutional Review Board exemption. The full survey instrument, with questions on prevalence, demographics, co-morbidities, and treatments of nail BFRBs, is shown in Appendix S1. Estimated response rate was 65%. Data was collected with Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) and analyzed in Windows R(3.5.3). Fisher's exact tests were used to assess bivariate associations. Statistical significance was evaluated at the 0.05 alpha level. A total of 203 subjects began the survey; 22 responses were incomplete and excluded, with 181 for final analysis. Current nailpicking and nail-biting were reported by 46.4% (84/181) and 46.9% (85/181) of all respondents, with median ages of onset 10 and 8 years, respectively. Only 0.0% and 5.1% of pickers and biters,

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The Importance of Education to Reduce Self-Destructive Nail Habits

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