Presentation (CTI)

OBJECTIVES: Sleep disturbance is well-documented in atopic dermatitis (AD), with greater disruption occurring during flares. Sleep disturbances in AD have been linked to a number of negative outcomes in AD, including decreased productivity, mood disturbance, and reduced quality of life. The study used symptom and treatment data collected via the Folia Health app, a digital health tracking tool, to examine how self-reported sleep characteristics change when AD patients experience a flare, relative to when they are not experiencing a flare.
METHODS: This analysis included 1 month of tracking from 34 individuals with self-reported AD. Participants used the Folia app to record their flares, as well as to provide information on sleep characteristics through both pre-defined and custom sleep-specific tags. Tags are answer responses that can be selected and included to further describe the real-world flare tracking experience in the Folia app. A comparison was conducted of the incidence of individual tags recorded during self-reported flares versus during periods when participants were not in a flare.
RESULTS: Across the participant population, 40 unique sleep characteristics were reported (36 pre-defined tags and 4 participant-created tags). Tags associated with higher quality sleep— such as “deep sleep”, “slept through the night”, and “fell asleep easily”—were more frequently selected when participants were not in a flare. Conversely, tags associated with disrupted sleep—including “itching”, “frustrated”, and “bathroom trips”—were more frequently reported during flares.
CONCLUSIONS: Results from this study confirm earlier findings of reduced sleep quality during AD flares. Additionally, these findings highlight the opportunity to use home-reported outcomes to identify unmet needs in AD care, which may result in more comprehensive and personalized disease management strategies.