Hyperhidrosis Prevalence: A Disease Underreported by Patients and Underdiagnosed by Physicians

BACKGROUND: Hyperhidrosis (HH) is a disorder characterized by excessive sweating beyond required for normal thermoregulation, as a result of the excessive functioning of the sudomotor sweat control system. HH is broadly classified into 2 categories: primary HH and secondary. Our aim was to study the prevalence of HH in patients attending dermatological outpatients. METHODS: Randomly selected 832 attendees of dermatology outpatient department were requested to fill out a questionnaire for their presenting concerns to attend, the demography information (age, gender, and occupation), and presence of excessive visible sweating symptoms after the informed, written, and understood consent. This questionnaire was then evaluated by the researchers. And those who had a history of excessive sweating were evaluated in detail about HH by another questionnaire. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of HH was 17.9% (149/832), whereas only self-reported prevalence was 10.2% (85/832) in the dermatology outpatients. Of 149 patients, 110 (73.8%) were of primary HH followed by 39 (26.2%) of secondary HH. CONCLUSION: This study showed a higher prevalence of HH in the attendees of dermatology outpatients of a tertiary care center but estimates that this disease affects a much larger proportion of individuals in the Nepalese population.