Dermatitis researchers use far too many instruments in measuring symptoms of skin ailments, a study found.

Symptoms of atopic ezcema/dermatitis (AD) were found in a systematic review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to be most often characterized from composite measures rather than stand-alone symptom severity rating instruments, and thirty different instruments were found to have been used across 378 trials.

The examination of how AD symptoms were assessed in RCTs reported from January 2000 to April 2014 was published by Louise A.A. Gerbens, MD,  Department of Dermatology, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and colleagues in the October issue of the British Journal of Dermatology.