Effects of a pilot educational intervention on perceptions of visible skin diseases in the pediatric population

This research study evaluate the effects of an educational intervention on perceptions of visible skin diseases in children. The intervention included reading a story about a fictional child with alopecia areata (see "Henry Wears a Hat Book PDF") and facilitating discussion with children in the context of diversity, equity, and inclusion criteria. Children were asked to choose a doll, neither dolls, or both dolls based on study tester's request before and after the intervention. Dolls included a doll with disease (alopecia areata, vitiligo, epidermolysis bullosa, and port wine stain) and the same doll without disease (see "Photo of Dolls"). We found that the intervention had a positive effect for all requests, but varied by disease. For alopecia areata, there was a positive effect for all 5 requests.本研究旨在评估一项教育干预措施对儿童可见性皮肤病认知的影响。该干预内容包括阅读一则关于患有斑秃(alopecia areata)的虚构儿童的故事（详见《Henry Wears a Hat Book PDF》），并围绕多样性、公平性与包容性准则引导儿童展开讨论。干预前后，研究测试者会要求儿童按照其指示选择玩偶：可选择患有疾病的玩偶、不患疾病的玩偶，或两者皆选。所用玩偶涵盖分别患有斑秃、白癜风(vitiligo)、大疱性表皮松解症(epidermolysis bullosa)及鲜红斑痣(port wine stain)的玩偶，以及与之对应的健康玩偶（详见《Photo of Dolls》）。本研究发现，该干预措施对所有请求类型均产生了积极影响，但因疾病类型不同存在差异；其中针对斑秃的5项请求均取得了积极效果。