Simpson CR, Newton J, Hippisley-Cox J et al. J R Soc Med 2009;102:108–17.
The prevalence of eczema has increased in developed societies since the 1950s. In the current article, the epidemiology of the disease was investigated in terms of prescribing behavior, consultation, incidence, and lifetime prevalence in England, UK. The authors found that the prevalence and incidence of eczema are on the rise in England, and that this is concurrent with a rise in the number of prescriptions for treating the disease.
In the current article, Simpson and colleagues analyzed the data from the QRESEARCH database, which is a representative, anonymized, aggregated health database, from 2001–2005, to determine the prevalence of eczema, and assess the consultation and prescribing behaviors for the disease. The QRESEARCH data are derived from >500 general practices throughout England, UK, and comprise the records of approximately 9 million individual patients. All forms of eczema were included in the case definitions.