Teledermatology vs. Face-to-Face Visits in the Follow-Up of Patients With Acne

Insel Gruppe AG, University Hospital Bern

Status: Completed

Conditions: Acne Vulgaris

Treatments: Device: Teledermatology; Other: Face-to-face consultation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04593004

2019-00620

Details and patient eligibility

About

Acne vulgaris is a common cutaneous inflammatory condition of sebaceous follicles that can profoundly affect patients' quality of life, especially at a young age. In this context the use of teledermatology can potentially reduce the healthcare costs associated to traditional consultations as well as the costs related to travel and loss of school/working time for the patient, with a clear benefit for the whole community. Since 2016, the Department of Dermatology at Inselspital Hospital in Bern has a portal and a smartphone app for online advice service.

Hereby the investigators propose to explicitly investigate the efficacy of this system in reducing healthcare costs as compared to traditional face-to-face consultations, in a cohort of patients with mild-to-moderate acne vulgaris.

Enrollment: 24 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 28 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Given written informed consent
• Mild-to-moderate acne as assessed by IGA scale
• Willingness and ability to adhere the study protocol

Exclusion criteria

• Need for systemic therapy for acne with Isotretinoin
• Inability to use the teledermatology system

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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24 participants in 2 patient groups

Teledermatology

Experimental group

Treatment:

Device: Teledermatology

Face-to-face consultation

Active Comparator group

Treatment:

Other: Face-to-face consultation