Quality of Life and Its Predictors in Patients with Occupational Hand Eczema: A Cross-sectional Study

The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the quality of life and its predictive factors in patients with occupational hand eczema.

In this cross-sectional-analytical study, 244 patients with occupational hand eczema were examined through convenience sampling. The tools of data collection included the standard questionnaire of quality of life index in skin diseases (DLQI) and visual analog scale (VAS). Data analysis was done by Stata14 and the raw and adjusted odds ratio (OR) with a 95% confidence interval (95% CI) was reported.

46.7% had severe eczema. Multivariable logistic regression model showed the age over 30 (OR=5.40; CI 95%: 2.92 – 9.98), female gender (OR=2.02 ; ; CI 95% : 1.14 – 3.06), housekeeping (OR=5.25 ; CI 95% : 1.94 – 14.24), work experience over 5 years (OR=4.59 ; CI 95% : 2.13 – 9.85), working more than 8 hours (OR=4.71 ; CI 95% : 2.57 – 8.62) and severity of hand eczema (OR=2.14 ; ; CI 95% : 1.28 – 2.56) were the most important predictors of low life quality in patients with hand eczema (P-value>0.05).

Hand eczema has a significant effect on the life quality of most patients; therefore, designing and implementing care and preventive programs considering the above-mentioned factors are necessary to improve the quality of life regarding these patients.