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