Abstract

Objective: Patients presenting to otorhinolaryngology (OHL) clinics with isolated external auditory canal (EAC) pruritus are common. Although there are many etiological reasons for this complaint, psychological factors have long been ignored. Psychocutaneous diseases must be considered in the differential diagnosis when no symptoms that might cause pruritus are detected in the OHL examinations, including anamnesis and microscopic otoscopy, of patients with isolated EAC pruritus. Recent studies have shown that psychological factors or disorders must not be ignored in patients with isolated EAC pruritus.

Method: A total of 60 patients who applied to the OHL clinic with EAC pruritus and had not received psychiatric treatment before or yet were included in the patient group (PG) in the study, after excluding other causes of EAC pruritus. The control group (CG) comprised 59 healthy participants who did not have previous or current pruritus with EAC and did not receive psychiatric treatment. The socio-demographic data forms that were prepared for the PG and CG participants included in the study were completed. The symptom checklist (SCL-90-R) and the Maudsey Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (MOCI) to the participants were also administered.

Results: The difference between SCL-90-R test overall scores and subparameters of SCL-90-R test between PG and CG in our study were the difference between obsessive-compulsive symptoms, somatization, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, anger-hostility, phobias, paranoid symptoms, psychoticism and additional scale scores was statistically significant (p<0.05). A statistically significant difference was also detected between the MOCI test total scores applied to PG and CG and the MOCI test sub-parameters control, cleanliness, slowness, suspicion, and rumination scores (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The data obtained in this study showed that the complaint of isolated EAC pruritus might have a psychological basis. The statistically significant difference in the parameters measuring the obsession and compulsion scores between the two groups in this study suggested that EAC pruritus might be a somatic obsession. Furthermore, the statistically significant difference between all parameters of the scales in the comparison between the two groups supported the hypothesis that EAC pruritus might have a psychological basis. This result, which was detected in the present study, indicated that psychological factors must not be ignored in EAC-related pruritus. However, more extensive studies are needed on this subject.