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“Dear hair loss”—illness perceptions of female patients with chemotherapy-induced alopecia

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Abstract

Objective

Chemotherapy-induced alopecia (CIA) is one of the most common and distressing side effects of chemotherapy treatment. This study aims to assess the illness perceptions of female patients dealing with CIA, and their associations with demographic and clinical characteristics, coping strategies, and quality of life. The secondary aim was to compare the illness perceptions of patients with CIA with other samples, to help elucidate the specific perceptions of patients with CIA.

Method

Forty female patients at risk of severe hair loss due to chemotherapy treatment were included at the oncological daycare unit of a teaching hospital in the Netherlands. Patients were asked to complete the Brief-Illness Perception Questionnaire (B-IPQ) and the Hair Quality of Life (Hair-QoL) questionnaire.

Results

Illness perceptions indicated that although patients understood their hair loss, they lacked being able to make sense of managing it, negatively impacting patients’ lives. Psychological quality of life was significantly correlated with the B-IPQ domains: consequences, degree of concern, and emotional response. Social quality of life was significantly correlated with psychological quality of life. Patients with CIA felt significantly less able to manage their hair loss, compared to patients with breast cancer and psoriatic arthritis.

Conclusion

As patients’ beliefs of being able to manage their hair loss are important for adopting and maintaining adequate coping behaviors, additional effort of health care providers in fostering patients’ sense of control is indicated, focusing on patients’ strengths during and after chemotherapy treatment. In the context of developing interventions for patients with CIA, consequences, concern, and emotional response are the major dimensions that should be taken in account to help patients deal with hair loss.

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Data availability

The data generated during this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Research and Development, Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organisation (IKNL), Godebaldkwartier 419, 3511 DT, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Anne Versluis, Kirsten van Alphen & Corina van den Hurk

  2. Department of Medical Oncology, Máxima Medical Centre, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Wouter Dercksen & Henk de Haas

  3. Department of Medical Psychology, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Ad A. Kaptein

Authors
  1. Anne Versluis
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  2. Kirsten van Alphen
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  3. Wouter Dercksen
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  4. Henk de Haas
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  5. Corina van den Hurk
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  6. Ad A. Kaptein
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Contributions

Kirsten van Alphen, Corina van den Hurk, Ad Kaptein, and Anne Versluis were responsible for the study design and protocol. The recruitment of the patients has been done by Wouter Dercksen and Henk de Haas at Máxima Medical Centre. Anne Versluis approached the patients for data collection. Analysis of the questionnaires had been done by Anne Versluis. All co-authors contributed to writing the first draft of the manuscript. Final approval of the manuscript has been given by all co-authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anne Versluis.

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Ethics approval

This study has been approved by METC of Máxima Medical Centre and was performed in accordance with the ethical standards. Ethics Committee number N17.148.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.

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Patients signed informed consent regarding publishing their data.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Versluis, A., van Alphen, K., Dercksen, W. et al. “Dear hair loss”—illness perceptions of female patients with chemotherapy-induced alopecia. Support Care Cancer 30, 3955–3963 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06748-y

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