Recent trends in disease severity and quality of life instruments for patients with atopic dermatitis: A systematic review

BackgroundA significant number of instruments exist that are aimed at quantifying atopic dermatitis (AD) outcomes.ObjectiveWe sought to assess recent trends in the use of disease severity and quality of life (QOL) outcome instruments in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted on patients with AD between July 2010 and July 2015.MethodsA total of 540 nonduplicate records were identified through searches of Scopus and Ovid MEDLINE. Included studies were RCTs conducted on humans with AD that were published in English between July 2010 and July 2015 and that reported the results of disease severity or QOL outcome measures.ResultsAll of the 135 included studies assessed disease severity. Only 45 studies assessed QOL. Sixty-two disease severity measures and 28 QOL scales were identified.LimitationsThis study was limited by its timeframe of 5 years and by the exclusion of non-RCTs and gray literature.ConclusionDisease severity and QOL outcome measures are instrumental in evaluating AD treatment efficacy. The number of such tools used in RCTs on patients with AD continues to rise. Standardization of outcomes instruments is essential for comparability among studies and improved quality of evidence.