Abstract
BackgroundEducational programmes for caregivers of children with atopic dermatitis (AD) are reported to reduce the severity of AD and improve quality of life (QOL). Oslo University Hospital (OUH) in Norway offers a multidisciplinary educational programme for caregivers of children with AD.We aimed to evaluate the AD educational programme by assessing QOL of the family, the severity of the disease and caregiver’s fear of topical corticosteroid (TCS) before and after attending the programme.MethodsThis was a small observational prospective cohort study including 41 caregiver-child pairs. The children (mean age 3.4 years) had doctors’ diagnosed AD with a difficult to treat eczema. The children’s caregivers were referred from physicians to attend the AD educational programme at our hospital. At inclusion and at a 3 months follow-up QOL was assessed by Dermatitis Family Impact (DFI), the eczema severity by Patient-Orientated - SCORing Atopic Dermatitis (PO-SCORAD) and caregivers fear of TCS was recorded by asking a dichotomous “yes” or “no” question: “Are you worried about using TCS on your child?”ResultsThree months after caregivers attending the educational programme there was an improvement in QOL by reduced mean DFI from 9.6 (SD 6.3) to 6.8 (SD 5.4), the mean PO-SCORAD was reduced from 38.5 (SD 15.1) to 24.6 (SD13.6), the number of caregivers reporting fear of TCS use was reduced from 33/46 (72%) to 12/41 (29%). All results p < 0.001.ConclusionOur study suggests beneficial effects by improving QOL of the family, the severity of the eczema and in reducing the fear of TCS when caregivers of children with difficult to treat AD attend an AD multidisciplinary educational programme. Lack of control group makes it difficult to draw definite conclusions.
Highlights
Educational programmes for caregivers of children with atopic dermatitis (AD) are reported to reduce the severity of AD and improve quality of life (QOL)
Atopic dermatitis is characterized by intense itch that results in impaired sleep, interferes with daily life activities and is associated with an impaired quality of life (QOL) [3], as well as having a high financial impact on families and society [4]
At inclusion and follow-up, there was a significant correlation between PO-scoring of atopic dermatitis (SCORAD) and Dermatitis Family Impact (DFI); (r = 0.54, p < 0.001) and (r = 0.43, p = 0.05), respectively
Summary
Educational programmes for caregivers of children with atopic dermatitis (AD) are reported to reduce the severity of AD and improve quality of life (QOL). We aimed to evaluate the AD educational programme by assessing QOL of the family, the severity of the disease and caregiver’s fear of topical corticosteroid (TCS) before and after attending the programme. Topical corticosteroids (TCS) are first-line therapy to treat the inflammation in AD [7], low compliance due to fear of side-effects is frequently observed [8]. This phenomenon is often referred to as “TCS phobia” or just “steroid phobia”
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