Acne Vulgaris
Conditions
Keywords
acne, telemedicine, teledermatology
Brief summary
Acne vulgaris is a common cutaneous inflammatory condition of sebaceous follicles that can profoundly affect patients' quality of life, especially at a young age. In this context the use of teledermatology can potentially reduce the healthcare costs associated to traditional consultations as well as the costs related to travel and loss of school/working time for the patient, with a clear benefit for the whole community. Since 2016, the Department of Dermatology at Inselspital Hospital in Bern has a portal and a smartphone app for online advice service. Hereby the investigators propose to explicitly investigate the efficacy of this system in reducing healthcare costs as compared to traditional face-to-face consultations, in a cohort of patients with mild-to-moderate acne vulgaris.
Interventions
DEVICETeledermatology
Patients will be assessed and followed-up by trained physicians through a store-and-forward system (teledermatology online service - Evita® app), which allows patients to upload pictures of skin areas affected by acne as well as their symptoms or questions related to their disease.
Patients will be assessed and followed-up by trained physicians through regular face-to-face outpatient consultations.
Sponsors
Insel Gruppe AG, University Hospital Bern
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
NONE
Intervention model description
1:1 stratified random allocation
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 28 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Given written informed consent * Mild-to-moderate acne as assessed by IGA scale * Willingness and ability to adhere the study protocol
Exclusion criteria
* Need for systemic therapy for acne with Isotretinoin * Inability to use the teledermatology system
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Total time spent by dermatologist after baseline | 4 months | Total cumulative time spent by dermatologist for face-to-face consultations or online assessments after baseline. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Total time spent by patient after baseline | 4 months | Total cumulative time spent by patient for visit-related travels and/or online procedures after baseline. |
| Acne severity improvement | 2, 4 and 6 months | Acne severity improvement from baseline as assessed by 5-point ordinal investigator's global assessment (IGA) scale, ranging from 1 to 5, with higher scores indicating a worse outcome. |
| Number of therapies prescribed for acne | 2, 4 and 6 months | — |
| Patient study satisfaction | 6 months | Overall patient satisfaction regarding the service received during the study as assessed by 11-point anchored visual analogue scale (VAS), ranging from 0 to 10, with higher scores indicating a better outcome. |
| Patient quality of life improvement | 6 months | Patient quality of life improvement from baseline as assessed by dermatology life quality index (DLQI), ranging from 0 to 30, with higher scores indicating a worse outcome. |
Countries
Switzerland
Outcome results
None listed