Treatment Willingness and Importance of Skin Clearance for Patients With Chronic Hand Eczema

Background Chronic hand eczema (CHE) has a significant negative impact on quality of life and a high disease burden. Objective To investigate the importance of skin clearance and daily time trade off (dTTO) in adult patients with CHE. Methods Patients with CHE from the Danish Skin Cohort were sent a digital survey regarding demographics, lifestyle factors, CHE characteristics, importance of obtaining skin clearance, and dTTO. Results Of 372 patients with current CHE, 58.1%, 26.3%, 11.0%, and 4.6% reported having mild, moderate, severe, and very severe CHE, respectively. Patients reported a median of 9 (interquartile range: [5–10], 9 [7–10], 10 [8–10] and 10 [9–10]) when asked about the importance of obtaining 50%, 75%, 90%, and 100% skin clearance, respectively (numerical rating scale from 0 [lowest] to 10 [highest]). Importance of skin clearance increased with increasing CHE severity ( p < 0.001). One in three patients (41.2%) with either severe or very severe CHE was willing to allocate > 1 h a day to treat their CHE. Conclusions Skin clearance was important among CHE patients, and patients with more severe disease were willing to allocate a substantial amount of time every day to treat their CHE.