[Taking showers at school is beneficial for children with severer atopic dermatitis]

Sweat(ing) is a common aggravating factor of atopic dermatitis (AD), and many school children with AD experience the exacerbation of their disease in summer.

We evaluated the usefulness of taking shower at the school for the management of AD in summer.

Fifty-eight school children with moderate or severer atopic dermatitis were enrolled in the study. Subjects were allocated to one of following groups, group A: no shower (n=15), group B: 4-weeks shower (n=22), group C1: 2-weeks shower in the first half (n=11), or group C2: 2-weeks shower in the latter half (n=10), and took (or did not take) shower at the school from the beginning of September. Disease severity was evaluated on day 0, 2 weeks later and 4 weeks later using SCORAD scoring system.

Significant improvements in SCORAD scores after 4 weeks were observed only in groups B and C1. When the subjects were sub-divided by the severity of the disease, the significant effect of shower was limited to the patients with severe and most severe disease. Similar results were obtained with a modified SCORAD score in which subjective symptoms were excluded.

It is useful to take showers at the school for the management of AD for the children with severer disease.