NCT04557644

Contagious Itch, Disgust and Empathy in Patients and Medical Staff

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 24 (actual)
• Sponsor: University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 7 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This study is to assess the relationship between CI, disgust and empathy in medical staff treating patients with scabies, to differentiate the impact of visual and verbal stimuli contributing to CI and to assess information about CI, disgust and empathy in a family infested with scabies.

Detailed description

Itch is the commonest skin-related symptom, defined as a bodily sensation provoking the urge to scratch. The induction of itch and scratching by mere (audio-) visual stimuli such as pictures of insects on skin or video clips showing individuals scratching themselves, indicates that itch can be perceived in the absence of a pruritogenic somatosensory stimulus. This phenomenon is referred to as "contagious itch" (CI). CI may play a special role in the content of scabies both for the affected patients as well as the treating staff: It is a very common phenomenon that family members who are not infested by scabies themselves experience itch when watching their infested relatives scratching. The same is very frequently expressed by health care professionals being confronted with scabies patients. Two further important factors may be involved in the context of CI: disgust and empathy. Empathy is defined as a psychological concept that enables individuals to understand and share emotions of others. Disgust is an emotional response of revulsion to potentially contagious and/or harmful objects or subjects. This study is to assess the relationship between CI, disgust and empathy in medical staff treating patients with scabies, to differentiate the impact of visual and verbal stimuli contributing to CI and to assess information about CI, disgust and empathy in a family infested with scabies.

Conditions

• Contagious Itch

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	7-items-questionnaires addressing CI, disgust and empathy	7-items-questionnaire including numerical rating scales (NRS) ranging from 0 (no itch/disgust/empathy) to 10 (worst itch/disgust/most empathy imaginable) to rate itch, disgust and empathy they experience when treating the infested families.
OTHER	Saarbrucken Personality questionnaire (SPQ) addressing empathy.	Empathy is additionally assessed by the Saarbrucken Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) ,a 16-item tool.
OTHER	10-items-questionnaire addressing previous dermatological conditions, intensity of itch	10-items-questionnaire (completed by the hospitalised family) regarding demographic information (gender, age, profession), previous dermatological conditions, intensity of itch a.) on the first day of the hospitalisation, b.) when seeing the skin lesions of the other family members c.) when talking about the scabies/itch with the other family members, d.) when seeing other family members scratching themselves, and questions regarding their intensity of disgust of the scabies and empathy for the other family members (0-10 NRS).
OTHER	ItchyQol-questionnaire composed of 22 items addressing itch-related symptoms, functions and emotions	ItchyQol-questionnaire to assess the itch-related quality of life impairment. The ItchyQoL is composed of 22 items addressing itch-related symptoms, functions and emotions.

Timeline

• Start date: 2020-09-16
• Primary completion: 2021-10-31
• Completion: 2021-10-31
• First posted: 2020-09-21
• Last updated: 2021-11-04

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Switzerland