Patient education in occupational skin diseases

Abstract

Worker and patient education has been shown to be of importance in the management of established cases of occupational dermatitis as well as a tool for primary prevention of diseases. In the framework of primary prevention, an interventional study concentrated on hairdressers' apprentices. At the end of the training program, 80% of the panelists of the interventional group and 66% of the control group had no skin changes (p < 0.05). A project of secondary individual prevention comprising dermatological and educational intervention has shown that 79.5% (n = 117) of the project participants could remain in work, opposed to 60% (n = 80) in a control group. To evaluate a program on tertiary prevention, patients with occupational skin diseases resistant to standardized outpatient care, that had been admitted to hospital, were questioned about the status of skin and profession condition 1 year after hospital release. The majority (65.9%, n = 232) of the participants had remained in their profession and practised the advised skin care strategies (81%). Establishing a formal consensus on what works in workers and patient education in occupational skin diseases and encouraging research about what is unknown, should be a priority. The description of variations in clinical practice has provided a useful impetus for fostering consensus and eliminating care of uncertain effectiveness. The concept of self-efficacy beliefs is of great importance and will be discussed. In teaching methods, equal emphasis is placed on the transmission of information as on the development of practical know-how.