[Early onset irritant skin damage in apprentice hair dressers]

In the course of a cohort study addressing the importance of constitutional and occupational risk factors for the development of irritant hand eczema, 859 hairdressing apprentices were examined in 14 vocational training schools in autumn 1993, after an average of 8 weeks of professional exposure. In this cross-sectional survey at the start of training, 38.2% were suffering from skin damage, in most cases mild to moderate and only rarely severe; we observed almost exclusively irritant skin damage, mostly localized interdigitally. Logistic regression analysis revealed previous hand eczema, an elevated ¿atopy score¿ (Diepgen) and, particularly, unprotected work for several hours daily with wet hands as significant risk factors for this early onset irritant damage/eczema. The high wet workload is mainly caused by very frequent shampooing and by permanent waving without wearing gloves; however, other tasks are also often performed without appropriate protective gloves. The implications of the considerable inter-observer variability are described and discussed.