Korean J Asthma Allergy Clin Immunol.
2012 Mar;32(1):16-20.
Survey on the Management of Atopic Dermatitis
Abstract
- BACKGROUND
Although atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common chronic inflammatory skin disease, patients and their parents do not quite understand its characteristics. We evaluated how they were diagnosed and treated and from where they obtained information about AD.
METHODS
We enrolled self-reported AD patients and their parents who attended the educational program held by Seoul Atopy Asthma Education Information Center, and a questionnaire was sent to each of them.
RESULTS
Enrolled patients were 107 (male 48, female 57) and their mean age was 26.71 years. Of the 107 patients, 84% were diagnosed by physicians, 60.3% were treated by dermatologists, 11.0% were treated by pediatricians, and 28.7% were treated by physicians of Chinese medicine or patients themselves. Patients thought that the most effective treatment methods were emollient application, environmental control, food restriction and medications in decreasing order. Topical steroids were avoided by 66.7% of the patients due to a fear of their side effects. Of the 107 patients 40.2% took more than 1 bath a day and 51.5% applied emollients twice or more times a day. In addition, 66.4% of all patients were on food restriction, for 46.5% of whom food restriction was recommended by physicians. Most (98.1%) of the patients and their parents emphasized the necessity of educational programs for AD.
CONCLUSION
Although AD must be continuously controlled and treated, AD patients and their parents did not quite understand AD and its treatment. There was a gap between the understanding of AD and its actual management methods. Therefore, we should continue to develop new educational programs in order to provide correct information about AD and its treatment.