Epidemiology of Acne Vulgaris: Prevalence, Severity and its Impact among School Teenagers in Makkah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Background: Acne vulgaris is one of the most prevalent chronic inflammatory dermatological problems among teenagers worldwide. It has a significant emotional and psychosocial impact on patient's quality of life. Acne vulgaris influence is found to be much higher in developing countries once compared to developed countries. Aim: to estimate the prevalence of acne vulgaris, severity, types and its influence on quality of life among Teenagers. Subjects and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted on 196 female teenagers aged between 13-19 years who were selected randomly. They were surveyed using a self- administered questionnaire followed by a physical examination by global acne grading (GAG) system. Cardiff Acne Disability Index (CADI) was employed to evaluate effect of acne on quality of life. Results: The prevalence of acne vulgaris was (45.7%). The majority of teenagers had acne with moderate severity (38.9%) followed by mild acne (30%), severe acne (26.6%) and very severe acne (4.5%). The mean (CADI) score was (4 ± 2.3). More than half (56.7%) have mild disability on their quality of life, 30% have moderate disability while 13.3% have severe disability. About 40% of the teenagers reported a major concern about their skin appearance and 33.4% consider their acne a bad problem. Predictors of disability were use of cosmetic, family history, menstrual disturbance and dietary factors.Conclusions: Acne is a very common skin problem among teenagers with the majority having moderate severity with mild to moderate disability