Journal
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY
Volume 22, Issue 4, Pages 531-536Publisher
JOHN LIBBEY EUROTEXT LTD
DOI: 10.1684/ejd.2012.1752
Keywords
Alopecia areata; disease-specific; outcome measure; quality of life
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Alopecia areata (AA) is a common hair loss disorder that frequently follows a chronic course. Although AA is apparently associated with disturbance of quality of life (QoL), no disease-specific instrument to measure the QoL has been developed. This study was conducted to develop a disease-specific self-administered instrument to measure AA patients' QoL (AAQ). A two-step cross-sectional study was conducted. Items were generated from qualitative interviews with five patients with AA (two men and three women, age 28 +/- 6.4years). Then, a preliminary questionnaire was produced and delivered to the patients (n = 122). The AAQ was examined in terms of statistical performance. The AAQ included 7 items in the following three subscales: 'restriction of activity', 'concealment' and 'adaptation'. The reliability of internal consistency was fair with Cronbach's alpha coefficients of 0.59-81 for each subscale. Confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analysis demonstrated that the AAQ had good construct validity. Interestingly, the AAQ was only correlated with subjective severity scores as rated by the patients, but not with objective disease severity assessed by investigators.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available