Knowledge and attitude towards vitiligo in Qassim Locality, Saudi Arabia

Background Vitiligo is a common depigmentary disorder of the skin with a prevalence rate of 1-2%. The social acceptance of people with vitiligo is largely dependent on perceptions of this disease in a given population and often represents a considerable problem for patients and their families. Objectives To know our population’s attitude towards vitiligo, including people’s knowledge of the disease, sources of information and reaction towards vitiligo patients. Subjects and methods This cross-sectional survey was done using a self-administered questionnaire. Subjects were recruited from the graduate students, and employees of Qassim University from April, 2006 to July, 2006. The data were collected and analyzed using Statistical Program for Social Sciences (SPSS release 15.0). p 0.05 was accepted for statistical significance. Results The study included 423 subjects; 325 (76.2%) were males and 98 (23.8%) were females. One hundred and thirty five subjects (31.9%) had no information about vitiligo while 78.7% of them reported that available sources of information about the disease in general are not enough. The main source of information for males was their physicians and for females were the newspapers (p 0.05) The disease was regarded as genetically transmissible by 58.2% and 55.6% thought it could be aggravated by stress. About 83% of surveyed subjects declined to marry a diseased person. Conclusion Community education is needed to clear some false perceptions in the mind of general population regarding vitiligo. This chronic skin disease prevents healthy life style, and better understanding of this disease by general public can result in better adaptation of vitiligo patients in the society.