Evaluation of pityriasis versicolor in prisoners: a cross-sectional study

Pityriasis versicolor (PV) is a mild but recurrent superficial fungal infection of stratum corneum. Many predisposing factors such as late teen and young adulthood age, tropical and subtropical climate (and to a lesser extent temperate climate), immunosuppression, malnutrition, use of oral contraceptives, hyperhidrosis, poor hygiene and a few other factors have been proposed for this condition.

Regarding these probable and possible risk factors, we felt that jail is a unique population which can be affected by this infection and therefore we decided to evaluate some aspects of this infection in this population.

In this cross-sectional study in male prisoners of Bandarabbas city, 230 prisoners were randomly selected. One hundred and five (45.67%) of them were diagnosed to be infected. They were also evaluated regarding age, duration of being imprisoned, skin color, site of lesion and its pigmentation change and any concomitant clinical manifestation such as pruritus, burning or cebure. Chi-square test or Fisher's exact test was used for data analysis.

Mean age of infected population was 31.62 +/- 8.67 years while peak incidence of PV was in 28-32 years age group. The most common color change was hypopigmentation. No case of PV hyperpigmentation was seen. We could not also observe any association between skin color and duration of being imprisoned with the frequency of infection.

There seems to be no difference between pattern of infection in the general population and prisoners' population in the aspects evaluated.