Gender Differences in Depression, Coping, Stigma, and Quality of Life in Patients of Vitiligo

Abstract

Though vitiligo is one of the psychodermatological disorders which do not cause direct physical impairment, it is cosmetically disfiguring leading to serious psychological problems in daily life. We undertook this research to study patients of vitiligo the prevalence of depression, coping, stigma, and quality of life and comparison of the same in both genders. Patients diagnosed clinically as having vitiligo by consultant dermatologist were enrolled after informed consent and ethics approval. 156 patients were screened, of which 100 satisfying criteria were taken up for the study. A semistructured proforma was designed to collect the necessary information with administration of Beck’s depression inventory, participation scale, dermatology life quality index, and adjustment to chronic skin diseases questionnaire. Depression prevalence was 63.64% in females and 42.86% in males (p<0.0457); the total mean BDI scores were significant with females having higher scores than males (p<0.0083). No significant differences were seen on participation scale though 52% females felt stigmatized as compared to 45% males (p <0.5779). While almost 97% of our patients had impaired quality of life there was no significant difference in both genders on the total score (p<0.3547). Females had significantly higher faulty coping style than males with significant differences on all domains and total scores (p< 0.0094). There was a strong association of depression with faulty coping and stigma (p< 0.0001) in both genders. Also association of stigma with quality of life showed highly significant findings in both genders (p< 0.0001) on all the domains of DLQI. This study helps in early identification of psychological problems in vitiligo patients and planning their future course of management, hence improving the prognosis and quality of life.

Importance of Personality for Objective and Subjective-Physical Health in Older Men and Women

“…We did not observe gender differences in objective health (MetS), but women reported lower subjective-physical health, as in other studies [22,32,33]. Therefore, one possible reason for this is that women tend to be more tuned in to their emotions and use less effective coping strategies than men [32][33][34]. Furthermore, we observed that the association between objective and subjective-physical health was moderated by conscientiousness, which in turn has been related to coping strategy selection [35].…”

The prevalence of depression among adolescent with HIV/AIDS: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…As expected, our study showed that the prevalence of depression was highest in females than males and the older adolescents than younger adolescents, which were in agreement with the reported prevalence rates of depression from adolescents in the general populations, cancer patients, as well as refugees and asylum seekers and [ 42 – 44 ]. The possible reasons for the gender differences in the prevalence of depression include adverse experiences in childhood and adolescence, the sociocultural roles of adverse events (psychological trauma), sexual abuse and the variations in coping skills [ 45 , 46 ]. The biological and genetic variations could be also mong the possible contributing factors for the observed variation [ 47 ].…”

Meta-Analytic Review of High Anxiety Comorbidity among Patients with Vitiligo

“…Begg's test (Pr > ∣ z | = 1.000), Egger's test ( P > ∣ t | = 0.826), and the funnel plot detected no publication bias ( Figure 3(b) ). Moreover, three studies reported the mean value and standard deviation of social anxiety for males and females separately [ 9 , 24 , 25 ]. Pooled results (SMD = 0.33, 95% CI: 0.13–0.53; P = 0.001) suggested that female patients were more susceptible to social anxiety ( Figure 3(c) ).…”