TY - JOUR

T1 - Prevalence and incidence of hand eczema in healthcare workers

T2 - protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

AU - Symanzik, Cara

AU - Yüksel, Yasemin Topal

AU - Christensen, Maria Oberlander

AU - Thyssen, Jacob P.

AU - Skudlik, Christoph

AU - John, Swen Malte

AU - Brans, Richard

AU - Agner, Tove

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 BMJ Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Introduction Healthcare workers (HCWs) constitute a high-risk group for developing occupational hand eczema (HE). The present systematic review and meta-analysis will compile and appraise evidence regarding prevalence and incidence of HE in HCWs. Methods and analysis Systematic searches will be performed in three electronic literature databases (PubMed/Medline, Web of Science-Core Collection and Embase). Further references will be retrieved by a manual search of included studies' reference lists using snowballing techniques. We will include experimental studies, observational studies, survey-based studies and clinical studies (publications in English, French and German from 2000 onwards) reporting on certified and apprentice HCWs, who actively work in the job. We will look at the following outcomes: Prevalence and incidence of clinically assessed as well as self-reported HE in the style of the Nordic Occupational Skin Questionnaire-2002; HE severity (measured by eg, Hand Eczema Severity Index, Osnabrück Hand Eczema Severity Index, Physician Global Assessment or other validated instruments as well as self-reported or by using undefined categories such as 'mild', 'moderate' or 'severe'); clinically assessed (eg, clinical diagnosis, UK Working Party's diagnostic criteria, Hanifin and Rajka diagnostic criteria for atopic dermatitis (AD)) and self-reported AD. We will assess the risk of bias within studies using detailed criteria according to the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. As we expect heterogeneity in methods and outcomes, we will conduct sensitivity analyses. A narrative synthesis of results instead of a meta-analysis will be done in case that quantitative pooling is not feasible. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval and patient consent are not required as this work is based on published studies. The results will be published in an international, peer-reviewed journal. PROSPERO registration number CRD42022303044.

AB - Introduction Healthcare workers (HCWs) constitute a high-risk group for developing occupational hand eczema (HE). The present systematic review and meta-analysis will compile and appraise evidence regarding prevalence and incidence of HE in HCWs. Methods and analysis Systematic searches will be performed in three electronic literature databases (PubMed/Medline, Web of Science-Core Collection and Embase). Further references will be retrieved by a manual search of included studies' reference lists using snowballing techniques. We will include experimental studies, observational studies, survey-based studies and clinical studies (publications in English, French and German from 2000 onwards) reporting on certified and apprentice HCWs, who actively work in the job. We will look at the following outcomes: Prevalence and incidence of clinically assessed as well as self-reported HE in the style of the Nordic Occupational Skin Questionnaire-2002; HE severity (measured by eg, Hand Eczema Severity Index, Osnabrück Hand Eczema Severity Index, Physician Global Assessment or other validated instruments as well as self-reported or by using undefined categories such as 'mild', 'moderate' or 'severe'); clinically assessed (eg, clinical diagnosis, UK Working Party's diagnostic criteria, Hanifin and Rajka diagnostic criteria for atopic dermatitis (AD)) and self-reported AD. We will assess the risk of bias within studies using detailed criteria according to the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. As we expect heterogeneity in methods and outcomes, we will conduct sensitivity analyses. A narrative synthesis of results instead of a meta-analysis will be done in case that quantitative pooling is not feasible. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval and patient consent are not required as this work is based on published studies. The results will be published in an international, peer-reviewed journal. PROSPERO registration number CRD42022303044.

KW - dermatology

KW - eczema

KW - occupational dermatology

U2 - 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-062194

DO - 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-062194

M3 - Review

C2 - 36207040

AN - SCOPUS:85139571201

VL - 12

JO - BMJ Open

JF - BMJ Open

SN - 2044-6055

IS - 10

M1 - e062194

ER -