New research on standards of care of occupational contact dermatitis has been published for OH practitioners and healthcare professionals.
The study, published in the “British Journal of Dermatology”, summarised the 2010 British Occupational Health Research Foundation systematic review and is designed to help healthcare practitioners translate those guidelines into clinical practice.
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
It is aimed at OH or healthcare practitioners that are required to deal with workers exposed to agents that potentially cause occupational contact dermatitis, as well as those agents that potentially cause occupational contact urticaria. The research emphasised that a temporal relationship with work and/or the presence of a rash on the hands can “only raise suspicion of an occupational cause, and do not necessarily confirm occupational causation”.
It added: “The identification of allergy by patch or prick tests is a major objective, since exclusion of an offending allergen from the environment can contribute to clinical recovery in the individual worker and avoidance of new cases of disease. This can be a complex process where allergens and irritants and therefore allergic and irritant contact dermatitis may co-exist.”
