The BATHE trial found that pouring emollient additives into the bath do not add any benefit over standard management. Standard management of childhood eczema includes soap avoidance, leave-on emollients and corticosteroid ointments.
The study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment Programme and led by Dr Miriam Santer at the University of Southampton in partnership with Dr Matthew Ridd at the University of Bristol's Centre for Academic Primary Care, Cardiff University and the University of Nottingham.
482 children from 96 general practices took part, making it by far the largest trial of emollient bath additives to date. Children were randomly allocated to two groups: one group was asked to use bath additives for a whole year and the other was asked not to use them for a whole year. Families completed short questionnaires weekly for the first 16 weeks, then every 4 weeks from 16 to 52 weeks.
There was no meaningful difference in eczema severity between the groups over the year. There was also no difference in the number of problems experienced with bathing, like stinging or redness following the bath, which affected a third of children in both groups.
Families of children with eczema are advised to continue to use leave-on emollient moisturisers and to avoid soap. This research has shown that pouring emollient bath additives into the bath water is very unlikely to offer extra benefit.
The award was announced at the RCGP’s annual primary care conference in Liverpool on 26 October.
Dr Ridd, co-author of the paper and Reader in Primary Health Care at the Centre for Academic Primary Care (CAPC), University of Bristol, said: “On behalf of the research team, the hundreds ofchildren and parents who took part in the study and the practice staff who supported it, I am delighted the BATHE study has received this recognition.”
The paper was published in the BMJ in May 2018.
Paper: Emollient bath additives for the treatment of childhood eczema (BATHE): multicentre pragmatic parallel group randomised controlled trial of clinical and cost effectiveness by Miriam Santer, Matthew J Ridd, Nick A Francis, Beth Stuart, Kate Rumsby, Maria Chorozoglou, Taeko Becque, Amanda Roberts, Lyn Liddiard, Claire Nollett, Julie Hooper, Martina Prude, Wendy Wood, Kim S Thomas, Emma Thomas-Jones, Hywel C Williams, Paul Little. BMJ. May 2018.