Social anxiety and irrational thought patterns in patients with dermatological problems

Acne vulgaris is generally associated with modiications in hormones or hormonal imbalance, which in turn impacts the skin in teenage. It is a distressing condition that afects the majority of adolescents, but the impact of acne vulgaris on the psychological aspects in this age group is poorly understood. It is a common distressing disease that can afect all aspects of an individual's mental health, in particular feelings, emotions, relationships and social life. The present study was designed to assess the social anxiety and irrational thoughts in patients with acne vulgaris and fungal skin infection. The sample comprised of 60 patients with skin disease (30 acne and 30 fungal, both male and female) clear diagnosed by dermatologist and 60 normal controls without any history of skin problems. Cognitive distortion scale and fear of negative evaluation scale were used for assessment. The Results indicate that the fear of negative evaluation and cognitive distortion level of acne and fungal patients are signiicantly higher than those of normal controls and gender diferences are also found to be signiicant. In order to determine the signiicance of irrational thoughts in predicting their social anxiety, step-wise multiple regression analysis was done which reveals that helplessness and self criticism emerged as the strong predictors of fear of negative evaluation (30% and 9% of total variance respectively) in skin patients. The present study conirmed that acne and fungal skin problems are not only hampers the physical, but also the psychosocial aspects. For the management of this, not only psychosomatic treatment, but a sympathetic approach is necessary.