Quality-of-life assessment in Chinese families with food-allergic children.
Clin Exp Allergy
; 39(6): 890-6, 2009 Jun.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-19226279
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Caucasian families with food-allergic children have a compromised quality of life (QoL) for fear of life-threatening food reactions. Such data are limited in Asian children. Based on our recent questionnaire-based survey, 8.1% of young children recruited from local nurseries and kindergartens had parent-reported adverse food reactions (AFRs).OBJECTIVE:
This study tested the robustness of the Chinese Food Allergy Quality of Life-Parental Burden questionnaire (FAQL-PB) and assessed QoL in families with childhood AFR. The correlations among FAQL-PB items were evaluated by factor analysis.METHODS:
Two hundred and ninety-eight of 3677 children aged 2-7 years had parent-reported AFR, and 197 (66.1%) of them completed the 17 items of our self-administered FAQL-PB. Six hundred and thirty-nine (18.9%) children without AFR returned this questionnaire. Factor analysis was used to delineate the inter-relationship among the FAQL-PB items.RESULTS:
Cronbach alpha for our Chinese FAQL-PB was 0.976, and the median (interquartile range) FAQL-PB scores of children with and without parent-reported AFR were 0.10 (0.02-0.32) and 0 (0-0.18), respectively (P < 0.001). Factor analysis confirmed excellent correlations between FAQL-PB items. The 17 items were clustered into two factors, which explained 79.7% of the total variance. Among children with AFR, FAQL-PB scores increased with increasing numbers of foods that caused AFRs (P < 0.001 for trend). Thirty (15.2%) children had impaired QoL, defined as average item FAQL-PB score > or = 0.5. Impaired QoL was associated with AFR that was caused by >3 foods (P = 0.001), current food avoidance (P = 0.005) and AFR caused by peanut (P = 0.003), egg (P = 0.011) and cow's milk (P = 0.028), and current flexural dermatitis (P = 0.011).CONCLUSIONS:
FAQL-PB is a robust measure of AFR-specific parental QoL, which is impaired in Chinese children with parent-reported AFR. Flexural dermatitis, current food avoidance and AFR caused by multiple foods are independent risk factors for lower parental QoL.
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Calidad de Vida
/
Encuestas y Cuestionarios
/
Hipersensibilidad a los Alimentos
Tipo de estudio:
Evaluation_studies
/
Qualitative_research
/
Risk_factors_studies
Aspecto:
Patient_preference
Límite:
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
País/Región como asunto:
Asia
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Clin Exp Allergy
Asunto de la revista:
ALERGIA E IMUNOLOGIA
Año:
2009
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Hong Kong