Prevalence and psychological impact of Acne vulgaris among female secondary school students in Arar city, Saudi Arabia, in 2018.

BACKGROUND

Acne vulgaris is a common heath problem affecting adolescents with considerable impact on their quality of life.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the prevalence of Acne vulgaris and its psychological impact among female secondary school students.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted during the period from January to March 2018, among all female secondary school students in 3 randomly selected schools, in Arar city (Saudi Arabia). The participants were clinically examined by a dermatologist to identify acne cases. Dermatological quality of life of acne cases were assessed using an Arabic version of Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI). Data collected were analyzed by IBM-SPSS version 20, using Chi-square, Fisher's Exact test, Mann-Whitney U, and Kruskal Wallis test. P-value ≤0.05 was considered statically significant.

RESULTS

The overall prevalence of Acne vulgaris was 14.3%. It was not significantly affected by age, marital status or nationality of participants. Post inflammatory hyper-pigmentation and scarring were detected in 11.6% and 8.7% respectively. Twenty nine percent of the cases had no impact; 56.3% had small to moderate impact and 14.5% had large effect. The psychological impact was significantly increased with increased severity, presence of acne lesions on face and other sites, presence of hyper pigmentation and scarring (p=0.001).

CONCLUSION

Acne vulgaris had large impact on quality of life in 14.5% of cases. Students should be counseled and educated on how to deal with this dermatological problem.