Clinical trial NCT04557644: Contagious Itch, Disgust and Empathy in Patients and Medical Staff
Official title: Contagious Itch, Disgust and Empathy in Patients and Medical Staff
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Contagious Itch
Keywords: itch
scabies
ectoparasites
post-scabetic itch
disgust
empathy
Lead sponsor: University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2020-09-21
Enrollment: 24
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 7
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: In this study both the staff and the infested family are to complete questionnaires addressing CI, disgust and empathy
Primary purpose: DIAGNOSTIC

Brief summary: This study is to assess the relationship between CI, disgust and empathy in medical staff treating patients with scabies, to differentiate the impact of visual and verbal stimuli contributing to CI and to assess information about CI, disgust and empathy in a family infested with scabies.

Detailed description: Itch is the commonest skin-related symptom, defined as a bodily sensation provoking the urge to scratch. The induction of itch and scratching by mere (audio-) visual stimuli such as pictures of insects on skin or video clips showing individuals scratching themselves, indicates that itch can be perceived in the absence of a pruritogenic somatosensory stimulus. This phenomenon is referred to as "contagious itch" (CI). CI may play a special role in the content of scabies both for the affected patients as well as the treating staff: It is a very common phenomenon that family members who are not infested by scabies themselves experience itch when watching their infested relatives scratching. The same is very frequently expressed by health care professionals being confronted with scabies patients. Two further important factors may be involved in the context of CI: disgust and empathy. Empathy is defined as a psychological concept that enables individuals to understand and share emotions of others. Disgust is an emotional response of revulsion to potentially contagious and/or harmful objects or subjects. This study is to assess the relationship between CI, disgust and empathy in medical staff treating patients with scabies, to differentiate the impact of visual and verbal stimuli contributing to CI and to assess information about CI, disgust and empathy in a family infested with scabies.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* members of families (aged \>7 years) hospitalized in the Department of Dermatology with scabies
* staff (physicians, nurses, nurse aids aged \>16 years) involved in the treatment of these families
* Infestation of scabies in individual family members confirmed by two leading dermatologists of the University Hospital Basel by dermoscopy and/or skin scrapings.

Exclusion Criteria:

-

Primary outcomes:
measure: Intensity of emotion (CI, disgust and empathy) in medical staff treating patients with scabies
timeFrame: one point assessment at baseline
measure: Intensity of emotion (CI, disgust and empathy) in family infested with scabies
timeFrame: one point assessment at baseline (first day of hospitalisation)
measure: Empathy scored by Saarbrucken Personality Questionnaire (SPQ)
timeFrame: one point assessment at baseline (first day of hospitalisation)
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Basel
country: Switzerland
facility: Department of Dermatology; University Hospital Basel
Study officials:
affiliation: Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Basel
name: Simon Mueller, PD Dr. med.
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: