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Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Trichotillomania also called hair-pulling or compulsive hair-pulling disorder is a psychiatric condition that involves recurrent, irresistible urges to pull out hair from their scalps, eyebrows, or other areas of the body.[1] It is an uncontrollable urge that is present after an anxiety-provoking situation and which causes severe distress it can interfere with one’s social, occupational functioning.[6] The term trichotillomania was coined by the French dermatologist Francois Henri Hallopeou in the year 1889.[2] The lifetime prevalence of trichotillomania is estimated to be between 0.6% and 4.0% of the overall population with a 1% prevalence in gender-wise.[5] The mean age at diagnosis is between 9 and 13 years, the symptoms can be pulling out hair repeatedly breaking off pieces of hair, eating or keeping hair, feeling relieved after pulling hair.[2]. Associated symptoms included sadness, lack of attention and concentration, lack of interest in doing daily activities, which affect the socio- functional aspects of the person. The comorbid conditions or the distress is mainly leading the person for consultation in ICD-10 and DSM IV, trichotillomania is classified under impulse control disorder in DSM V it is under obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. [1]

CASE DESCRIPTION:

A 20-year-old adult female was referred from the Department of Dermatology presented with a history of hair pulling, hair loss and anxiety, sadness related to her hair-pulling behavior. She had these symptoms for the past 4 years. The reason for referral was that the comorbid anxiety, and their history taking suggestive of hair pulling associated with anxiety. After collecting the detailed history and psychological assessment, it was confirmed as a case of Trichotillomania, the comorbid condition are depression and anxiety.

CONCLUSIONS:

This case report presents trichotillomania the assessment indicated as a moderate level of anxiety and depression, so it is very essential for a detailed investigation, and also both pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy are very essential for the complete recovery of the patient.

First Page

34

Last Page

41

Conflict of Interest

Nil

Keywords

TRICHOTILLOMANIA, PSYCHODERMATOLOGY, ANXIETY

Word Count

1125

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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