Contact Dermatitis Feedback – Margarita Mayuga

The video did an excellent job explaining the relationship between pathophysiology, symptoms, diagnostic evaluation, and treatments for both allergic contact dermatitis and irritant contact dermatitis. From what I learned, contact dermatitis is an inflammatory skin condition that causes the skin to trigger a reaction when it comes into direct contact with substances or irritants.

Allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) will show symptoms such as raised palpable erythema with clear boundaries that can spread along lymphatic vessels, itching, and a rash that persists for more than 4 days. This type of contact dermatitis is due to the exposure to allergens with some common ones being nickel, fragrances, and preservatives. ACD goes through a sensitization process during the first exposure which involves naïve t-cells, memory cells, and t-helper cells. When re-exposure occurs this causes the body to activate its immune response that was created during the first exposure and causes the release of inflammatory mechanisms showing the symptoms listed above. The diagnostic evaluation that was mentioned was a dermatologist performing a patch test in conjunction with the symptoms observed.

Irritant contact dermatitis (ICD) normally happens when there is direct damage to the skin barrier without any immune involvement. This differs from ACD because there is no previous sensitization to be able to elicit a response. Damage to the skin barrier causes the keratinocytes to be affected and release proinflammatory cells that cause the symptoms. These symptoms can include erythema, cracked skin, burning, edema, and painful fissures. The common irritants that were mentioned are solvents, soaps, and prolonged exposure to moisture. For ICD the main treatment was removing the irritant to lessen the exposure and possibly resolve some the symptoms that are occurring. Other options can include repairing the skin barrier with the use of emollients, corticosteroids, immunosuppressants like methotrexate, and sargassum that can provide homeopathic symptom control.

Overall, this video did a great job relating the different concepts together in a way that was easy and clear to understand while also remaining professional and educational with the execution of the content.

I think that this video did a great job explaining the topic in a way that was easy to understand and I really enjoyed having the animations to go along with the content that was being explained. There were no gaps that I really noticed when watching the video, all of the information flowed really well and connected together accordingly. I think a way to further enhance my understanding of the topic could have been to incorporate scenarios that were directly correlated to nursing or something that we could see in our practice. Possibly putting in statistics of the rate of contact dermatitis that is seen in health care settings or the prevalence of this in nurses and health care workers would have been interesting to see as we’re approaching the process of becoming new graduate nurses. Some of the risk factors include solvents, soaps, and prolonged exposure to water or moisture, and these are all factors that are commonly seen in the health care setting. Having information that are related to the environments that most of us will be working in soon is something that I thought would be fun to incorporate and nice to learn about. I understand that there was only so much information that could be condensed into a short video, and this was such an excellent way to present the pathophysiology and the main symptoms and treatments. Overall, it was a well laid out and informative video and it definitely aided in my learning about contact dermatitis.

One teaching strategy that was incorporated into the video that supported my learning was the use of the animations. I am a visual learner and having pictures that related to the words being said greatly aided in my understanding of the topic. I normally enjoy watching videos online that explain topics with animations and drawings that help to further explain and visualize the concepts being presented. This allows for me to see different connections and pathways that cannot be easily understood from just an explanation through words. Having these visuals can also help to keep the audience engaged because of the moving parts in the video while also having cute animations which can appeal to audiences that like the overall aesthetic look. It also greatly helped in portions like explaining the symptoms and what these may look like on patients. Having a picture to go alongside a description was a great way to understand the presentation of these symptoms so we can be familiar with the imagery if we come across contact dermatitis in the future. I also enjoyed the incorporation of the case study character “Theo” throughout the explanation of contact dermatitis. This allowed for the audience to have a specific example that was easy to follow and realistic. By relating this character’s story to the content, it created an overarching theme that the viewers could follow along with and connect the concepts like pathophysiology and symptoms together with the specific case study. It was simple and straightforward and great for audiences that may not have any medical or science background.

I think a change that could be incorporated to further improve its content or creativity would be to provide a review of the information at the end of the video of the main points covered. Again, this may just be my specific learning style, but I do enjoy having a summary of the topics covered to wrap up the main contents of the video and a very condensed way at the end. I find that sometimes it is easy to forget the information that was shown at the beginning or even the middle of the video especially when there is a lot of content that needs to be covered in a short timeframe. An example of having a portion at the end of the video that can summarize the main key points could be like highlighting the differences between allergic and irritant contact dermatitis, the main symptoms that can be presented, and the treatments that can be used for both types. This repetition allows for the viewers to also think back to the information that was just presented to them and use the summary as a way to call back the knowledge and solidify the learning that has been done throughout the video. Also, sometimes the summary at the ends of videos are what I tend to remember the most from the whole video because of how it captures the essence of the content. Overall, I wouldn’t change anything about the content since I believe it was very clear and concise, and this suggestion was mainly based on my own specific learning style and ways of absorbing content.

I think that this video was very informative and has many portions that I can take into my future practice. I was not familiar with contact dermatitis prior to this video so having that new knowledge of symptoms and diagnostics to look out for will be very helpful when doing assessments on my future patients. I will especially remember to do a thorough history assessment to narrow down the possible causes and when these reactions started. This way it can help to figure out whether this reaction is allergic contact dermatitis or irritant contact dermatitis and provide a guide to how we can further diagnose and treat the symptoms. Also narrowing down the history can allow for us to understand the possible irritants or substances that may be causing this reaction and providing the client with this information so that they are made aware of these as well and begin to think of alternatives that could help improve their symptoms.

Another takeaway from this would be learning the symptoms like palpable erythema, vesiculation, intense itching, papules, and rashes that persist for longer than 4 days. Knowing specific symptoms like these can further help us to gather information and present the information to the physician in a way that is clear and has a direction to what our nursing diagnosis is in relation to our findings. We as nurses will have the most direct care for our patients and can be the workers that will notice changes like these when they arise, so having this knowledge of symptoms could help us to promptly notify the physician and manage the symptoms before they get worse.

I also think that having knowledge like this for ourselves as future nurses would be helpful since I feel like we can be very susceptible to contact dermatitis due to the workplace environments that we are normally placed in. We are exposed to a lot of harsh chemicals that can break our skin barrier and many irritants such as gloves, soaps, and adhesives that are all risk factors for contact dermatitis. Being very mindful in how we protect ourselves and also noticing any symptoms if they arise would be helpful for our own self-management.