Caregivers of children with atopic dermatitis (AD) were generally quite willing to apply topical corticosteroids once-daily if initially anchored to the idea of a 4-times-daily treatment regimen, according to a recent study that surveyed 100 caregivers of children with AD. Scores were treated as ordinal data and evaluated using the Mann-Whitney U test and chi-squared tests.

Researchers found:

• Subjects anchored to a 4-times-daily treatment regimen were more willing to treat their child’s AD once-daily (mean, 8.7) than those not anchored (mean, 7.9), however the difference between these groups was not statistically significant.

• For most patients with AD, anchoring may not be helpful, but for patients whose main barrier is perceived burdensomeness of treatment, anchoring may be of some benefit.