Educate parents and children about atopic eczema
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Childhood atopic eczema |
Health care professionals should spend time educating
children with atopic eczema and their parents or carers about the condition
and its treatment, according to a National
Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guideline published
this week.
There are several things that pharmacists can do to ensure
that patients achieve the best results from
their treatment, according to Christine Clark, a pharmacist
and member of the guideline’s development group.
The guideline provides advice on the routine management of atopic eczema
in primary care for children from birth to 12 years of age. Key recommendations
include that health care professionals should adopt a holistic approach
when assessing a child’s eczema and that they should offer a choice
of unscented emollients to use every day for moisturising, washing and
bathing.
A stepwise approach to treatment should be adopted, with emollients
forming the basis of management, it says. Emollients should be used even
when the eczema is clear. The guideline recommends that leave-on emollients
should be prescribed in large quantities (250g to 500g weekly).
The guideline also addresses fears that parents or carers may have over
the use of topical corticosteroids. Health care professionals should
explain that the benefits of topical corticosteroids outweigh the risks
when applied correctly, it says. It advises that containers, not the
outer packaging, are labelled with the steroid potency.
Pharmacists have an enormous role to play in making sure that parents
and carers have the necessary information to treat their child’s
eczema correctly, Dr Clark told The Journal. “Treatment failures
often occur because people do not understand how to use emollients properly,” she
explained. “People are still washing their children with soap and
bubble bath, which undoes the benefits of emollients,” she added.
Dr Clark stressed that parents or carers should have a good understanding
of what can be achieved through conventional medicines before they consider
turning to traditional remedies. The guideline recommends that health
care professionals should explain that the effectiveness and safety of
complementary therapies and food supplements for atopic eczema have not
been adequately assessed.
Dr Clark added that one of the biggest things that pharmacists can do
is to make sure that patients have enough emollients and steroids at
home so that they can step up treatment when a flare up occurs.
Medicines reconciliation Hospital
policies should ensure that pharmacists are involved in medicines reconciliation
as soon as possible after a patients’ admission
to hospital, NICE states in its first safety
guidance document produced in collaboration
with the National Patient Safety Agency.
The guidance, released this week, explains that the aim of medicines reconciliation
is
to ensure that medicines prescribed on admission correspond to those that the
patient was taking before admission.
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal
Acrobat
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