Predictive factors for hand eczema.

Factors related to hand eczema were studied. Their relative importance as predictors was ranked by multiple logistic regression analysis. Questionnaires were sent to 20,000 individuals aged 20-65 years, randomly selected from the population register. Those subjects (1385) considering themselves to have had hand eczema within the previous 12 months were invited to a dermatological examination. It was found that a history of childhood eczema was the most important predictive factor for hand eczema. Second was female sex, followed by occupational exposure, a history of asthma and/or hay fever, and a service occupation. A small decrease in risk with advancing age was also found. The difference in the probability of having had eczema in a 1-year period, between individuals having the most important risk factors studied and those having none of them, proved to be for females 48% compared to 8%, and for males 34% compared to 4%. A history of childhood eczema was found to be more common among young persons, indicating an increase in the prevalence of atopic dermatitis. Of those individuals who reported childhood eczema, 27% reported hand eczema on some occasion during the last 12 months.