A Randomised Clinical Trial on the Effect of Group Education on Patients With Occupational Hand Eczema
Condition: Eczema; Skin Conditions
MeSH terms: Eczema; Skin Diseases
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      Occupational hand eczema (OHE) is a frequent disease which often takes a chronic course. The
      burden of the disease is high in a personal as well as in a socio-economic context. There is
      a need for evaluating new strategies to improve the prognosis for OHE patients. The
      objectives of the study is to evaluate the effect of group education on sick lave,
      health-related quality of life and disease severity among individuals with newly notified
      OHE.

      The trial population consist of individuals from the Capital Region of Denmark and Region
      Zealand with a suspected skin-related industrial injury notified to the Danish National Board
      of Industrial Injuries (DNBII). Recruitment is started Juli 2012, and will continue until the
      designed number of participants have been included.

      All participants will be assessed in a questionnaire at time T=0 with regard to: self
      evaluated disease severity, health-related quality of life, skin protective behaviour,
      knowledge of skin protection, self-efficacy, work-role function and if active in workforce.
      The participants will then be randomised. The intervention group will be invited to
      participate in the educative course, and work place visits will be offered. In the
      intervention group a telephone hot line will be available for further questions concerning
      these topics. The control group will not have access to any of these interventions. Both
      intervention group and control group will be contacted every eighth week about number of days
      of sick leave/absence from workforce. Both groups are re-assessed using a questionnaire at
      T=12 months. There will be a total of 742 included participants.

      .
    

Detailed description: 
      The hypotheses of the PREVEX trial are:

        -  Early information build on evidence-based skin-protection programmes and work-place
           visits with counselling in skin care, followed by telephone hotline, will give the
           participants increased level of knowledge concerning the treatment and prevention of
           OHE.

        -  Increased level of knowledge concerning prevention and focus on skin care will have a
           positive impact on skin-protective behaviour and will lower the severity of HE and
           prevent the development of chronic eczema.

        -  The decrease in severity of HE will decrease sick leave and keep the participants in
           job, or prevent job loss, or facilitate the re-entry into the workforce.

        -  In total, the intervention will have a positive effect on health-related quality of
           life.
    

Intervention name(s): group education
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): The experimental intervention consists of:
A. Group education on general skin-protective behaviour. B. Group education and counselling on work-related skin-protective behaviour, which might extend to a work-place visit.
C. Social guidance related to OHE. D. Telephone hot-line for work and case-related problems, maintained by nurse.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single (Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: workers education; occupational