[Illness perceptions of patients with occupational hand eczema with respect to sociodemographic characteristics].

Background: Occupational, inflammatory skin diseases are a common work-related disease. Often, these diseases are irritative and/or allergic hand eczema. Affected groups include, for example, nursing staff and metal workers. Individual outpatient and inpatient prevention programs aim at improving self-management of the disease (i.e., improving skin protection behavior) and preventing affected workers from job loss due to their illness. The common-sense model is a widely used framework to explain the patients' illness perceptions of their disease. Qualitative research methods are appropriate means to explore illness perceptions. As the group of patients suffering from occupational skin diseases is heterogeneous (age, professions, gender), it seems necessary to focus on sociodemographic characteristics. Methods: After conducting guided interviews with 36 patients of a tertiary individual prevention program, the analysis of 35 interview transcripts was carried out using qualitative content analysis. After building main categories deductively, based on the theoretical framework (Common-Sense Model), subcategories were formed inductively, based on the data material. Results: Transcripts of 35 patients were analyzed (18 women, 17 men, age: 22-63 years). All dimensions of the theoretical framework could be mapped in different subcategories. Here, especially the complexity of suspected and/or perceived causes named by the participants became apparent. With regard to age groups and occupations, some differences were found in the material. For example, statements indicating self-efficacy with regard to the controllability of hand eczema were more likely to be found among nursing staff than among metal workers. Conclusion: The complexity of the perceived causes reflects the multifactorial etiology of the disease (e.g., irritative hand eczema with atopic disposition). In some cases, differences between occupational and age groups became apparent. This makes clear that occupational groups involved in individual prevention (e.g., physicians, therapists) should also reflect the potential impact of sociodemographic aspects when considering subjective perceptions of disease.