Trial Name
ECO - Eczema Care Online
Description
ECO aims to promote effective eczema self-care by improving individuals’ knowledge of eczema treatments and influencing attitudes, skills, and habits related to treatment use. The study will develop and test online resources that address the needs of people with eczema in supporting their use of eczema treatments.
Objectives
- Gain an understanding of experiences of eczema, including self-care support needs and patient/carer views on, and experience of, using eczema treatments.
- Establish current best evidence on the safety of topical corticosteroids and use this to create tools to support shared decision making and shared understanding between health professionals and people with eczema.
- Create two tailored interventions designed to target and influence behaviour.
- Feasibility randomised controlled trials will establish the trial recruitment and viability, and the full-scale trials will determine clinical and cost effectiveness.
- Support the interpretation of the findings and facilitate uptake of the interventions and engage with clinical communities to promote sign-posting towards interventions
Design
This project will be carried out through the following five inter-connected work packages (WPs):
- WP 1: Explore the support needs and barriers to self-care through reviewing the existing evidence and conducting interviews with people with eczema and people who care for someone with eczema.
- WP 2: Systematically review existing evidence on topical corticosteroid safety.
- WP 3: Develop two online interventions to help support self-care: one for parents/carers of children with eczema and one for teenagers and young adults with eczema.
- WP 4: Determine clinical and cost-effectiveness of the online interventions compared to standard care by performing two randomised controlled trials with health economic analyses.
- WP 5: Investigate how the interventions can be integrated into clinical practice and facilitate their uptake if effective.
Population
The research will focus on meeting the needs of carers of children with eczema, as well as teenagers and young adults who manage their own eczema. The study will also address the concerns of patients and healthcare professionals around the safety of topical corticosteroids.
Contacts
Chief Investigators: Dr Miriam Santer & Professor Kim Thomas
Programme Lead: Dr Ingrid Muller
ECO Website