Patterns of chronic hand eczema: a semantic map analysis of the CARPE registry data

Summary

Background

Hand eczema (HE) has a high incidence and prevalence, and is associated with disturbances of both physical and psychological well-being, and risk of persistence as chronic HE (CHE). Epidemiological studies on HE provided mainly descriptive and risk analyses, but pattern analyses of variables associated with HE, in particular CHE have not been explored so far.

Objectives

To investigate and display the semantics of associations among variables of HE obtained by the Swiss and German registries of CHE (CARPE) to dissect patterns and novel links.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study on selected variables of the CARPE registries. Associations among variables were analyzed by means of an auto-associative system. A semantic connectivity map was generated by using the maximum spanning tree algorithm.

Results

Baseline data sets of 1466 CHE patients (Switzerland: 199; Germany: 1267) were analyzed. Occupational exposure had the highest impact on CHE in the total and country cohorts. We identified two areas of exposure linked to corresponding occupations that clearly demarcated genders.

Conclusions

This study using a semantic connectivity as novel method of data analysis reveals the complexity of features characterizing CHE as well as novel association patterns that deserve further investigations.

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