New forms of management in dermatology - Integrated in-patient-out-patient prevention of severe occupational dermatoses: Cornerstones for an effective integrated management in clinics and practices

Abstract

Occupational dermatoses (OD) are the most frequent occupational diseases in Germany and amount to more than 25 % of all suspected occupational diseases. Preventive measures have proven to be very effective in recent years, especially measures of primary and secondary prevention as components of a complex hierarchical prevention concept in wet work occupations. If employees are in danger of loosing their job due to a severe OD, intensive interdisciplinary measures of tertiary individual prevention (TIP) are required. TIP comprises 2-3 weeks of inpatient treatment plus intensive health-pedagogic counselling, followed by 3 consecutive weeks (or longer) of out-patient treatment by the local dermatologists (''Osnabrueck model''). Each patient will stay off work for a total of at least 6 weeks to allow full barrier-recovery. It could be shown that 2/3 of the patients successfully remained in their workplaces because of TIP. TIP reveals remarkable pertinent options for interdisciplinary disease management in severe OD in all risk professions. In Germany recently, a multi-centre study was started which will further standardise such preventive measures and evaluate their long-term success.