Wednesday, May 20, 2026, marks International Clinical Trials Day. This celebrates the health advancements made possible through clinical research, and the teams behind them. In Rapid Eczema Trials, we have a lot to celebrate, and it’s all thanks to our enthusiastic team of citizen scientists, researchers and healthcare professionals.
Rapid Eczema Trials is a 5-year NIHR-funded research programme. It is spear-heading a new approach to running clinical studies in partnership with people with eczema. In our citizen science approach, we involve people with eczema and parents/carers of children with eczema every step of the way. Around 1,300 individuals have subscribed to our citizen science community. They help us decide which topics to research. They also help us design and deliver the research. Some have also taken part in our clinical studies.
In addition to being co-led by citizen scientists, another ground-breaking aspect of Rapid Eczema Trials is that our clinical studies are run entirely online. This means that there are no geographical boundaries to taking part, and no need for extra GP or hospital appointments.
The programme started in September 2022, and worked with the eczema community to prioritise three topics for research:
Best ways to bathe when you have eczema
Best ways to keep control when you have eczema
Psychological interventions for people with eczema
For International Clinical Trials Day, I wanted to update you on our progress with these three studies.
Our first study, the Eczema Bathing Study, opened to recruitment in January 2024. This aimed to find out whether it’s better for people with eczema to have a shower (or bath) daily, or just once or twice a week. This is such a commonly asked question. A total of 438 people took part in this study. Our study found that it makes no difference to eczema symptoms whether people bathe daily or weekly. This gives people with eczema the freedom to choose whatever bathing routine suits them. This finding has already been incorporated into the NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) Childhood Eczema Guideline (point 1.5.1.45). This is hugely significant, as NICE guidelines shape the care provided across the NHS. It’s also included in the bathing advice in the self-management resource Eczema Care Online.
Hot on the heels of our first study, our second study opened to recruitment in July 2025, and involves 463 people with eczema. This Keep Control of Eczema Study is looking at how best to use steroid creams to treat eczema flare-ups. The study has now finished recruiting. We’ll soon start analysing the data and hope to announce the study’s findings towards the end of 2026.
We will soon be launching our third and final study. The Scratch Less Study will be testing an online programme to see if it can help people break the itch-scratch cycle of eczema. We will need around 600 people to take part in this study.
These studies were only possible because of the dedication and enthusiasm of everyone in our eczema research community. It’s been a real pleasure working with so many eczema citizen scientists in our Rapid Eczema Trials journey. If you would like to find out more about the work of Rapid Eczema Trials, please explore our website or email us at eczema@nottingham.ac.uk. And don’t forget to help us spread the word about our Scratch Less Study, and the results of our Eczema Bathing Study! We will send an email to everyone on our mailing list to let them know when the Scratch Less Study is open and recruiting.
Happy International Clinical Trials Day 2026, from everyone at Rapid Eczema Trials.