What Factors are Important to Patients when Assessing Treatment Response: An International Cross-sectional Survey

Abstract

This study investigated the perspective of international patients on individual symptoms of atopic dermatitis (eczema) in determining treatment response. A questionnaire was developed to evaluate the importance of symptoms from the patient?s perspective. Patients were asked: ?How important are these features in deciding whether or not a treatment is working??, and rated symptoms on a 5-point Likert scale. Patients were approached via Harmonising Outcome Measures for Eczema (HOME) collaborators and self-selected to take part in the on-line survey. Patients from 34 countries (n=1,111) completed the survey; of these, 423 (38.3%) were parents of children with eczema. Nine items were rated as being ?quite important? or ?very important? by more than 80% of the respondents: itch, pain/soreness, skin feels hot or inflamed, bleeding, involvement of visible or sensitive body sites, cracks, sleep difficulties, amount of body affected, and weeping/oozing. These results may be of use in determining the face validity of scales from a cross-cultural patients? perspective