Abstract:BackgroundFood allergy negatively impacts the quality of life (QoL) and has been associated with increased maternal anxiety. There is currently a lack of data assessing QoL of food‐allergic children and adolescents in Russia. We aimed to evaluate the performance of the Food Allergy Quality of Life Questionnaire (FAQLQ) measures in a Russian sample of children, adolescents, and mothers and to investigate association between child QoL and maternal general anxiety.MethodsFAQLQ and Food Allergy Independent Measure… Show more
“…Caregiver anxiety was significantly correlated with almost all proxy‐reported measures of child impact, partially supporting previous research finding maternal anxiety is significantly associated with child's proxy‐reported HRQL in FA 11,13 . However, while caregiver sex was also significantly associated with child's PA burden for almost all FAQLQ outcomes, our findings suggest that male caregivers report higher levels of burden experienced by their child than female, whereas previous research has found mothers reported greater burden for their child than fathers reported 9 .…”
Section: Discussionsupporting
confidence: 82%
“…In line with recent findings, a child's sex was not associated with proxy-reported child burden, 12 with child's proxy-reported HRQL in FA. 11,13 However, while caregiver sex was also significantly associated with child's PA burden for almost all FAQLQ outcomes, our findings suggest that male caregivers report higher levels of burden experienced by their child than female, whereas previous research has found mothers reported greater burden for their child than fathers reported. 9 It is possible that this novel finding is due to previous studies lacking male caregivers in their sample; alternatively, this may reflect the increase in shared parenting and greater involvement of males in childcare.…”
Section: Discussioncontrasting
confidence: 67%
“…10,11 In addition, having multiple FAs, severe symptoms and maternal depression, stress and anxiety have also been found to negatively impact a child's HRQL. [11][12][13] No relationship has previously been reported between adrenaline auto-injector (AAI) prescription, reaction severity, or child sex and child HRQL. 10,11,14,15 Conflicting findings on the relationship between children's age and HRQL have been reported, with one study finding that older children (aged 6-12 years) had worse HRQL than children aged up to 5 years 12 and another study showing no significant association between age and HRQL.…”
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
“…Caregiver anxiety was significantly correlated with almost all proxy‐reported measures of child impact, partially supporting previous research finding maternal anxiety is significantly associated with child's proxy‐reported HRQL in FA 11,13 . However, while caregiver sex was also significantly associated with child's PA burden for almost all FAQLQ outcomes, our findings suggest that male caregivers report higher levels of burden experienced by their child than female, whereas previous research has found mothers reported greater burden for their child than fathers reported 9 .…”
Section: Discussionsupporting
confidence: 82%
“…In line with recent findings, a child's sex was not associated with proxy-reported child burden, 12 with child's proxy-reported HRQL in FA. 11,13 However, while caregiver sex was also significantly associated with child's PA burden for almost all FAQLQ outcomes, our findings suggest that male caregivers report higher levels of burden experienced by their child than female, whereas previous research has found mothers reported greater burden for their child than fathers reported. 9 It is possible that this novel finding is due to previous studies lacking male caregivers in their sample; alternatively, this may reflect the increase in shared parenting and greater involvement of males in childcare.…”
Section: Discussioncontrasting
confidence: 67%
“…10,11 In addition, having multiple FAs, severe symptoms and maternal depression, stress and anxiety have also been found to negatively impact a child's HRQL. [11][12][13] No relationship has previously been reported between adrenaline auto-injector (AAI) prescription, reaction severity, or child sex and child HRQL. 10,11,14,15 Conflicting findings on the relationship between children's age and HRQL have been reported, with one study finding that older children (aged 6-12 years) had worse HRQL than children aged up to 5 years 12 and another study showing no significant association between age and HRQL.…”
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
“…Previous studies on food allergy have used a variety of anxiety and QoL tools 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 and used in diverse populations. 2 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 …”
Background
Food allergy has a known impact on quality of life (QoL), but this has not been extensively studied during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Objective
The objective of this mixed methods study was to characterize the levels of anxiety of mothers of food allergic children aged 0-8 years, compared to families without a food allergic child, as well as health-related quality of life (HRQL) amongst food allergic children during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods
In a mixed methods study of Canadian mothers of children 0-8 years, food allergic cases and non-allergic controls provided demographic data, and completed age-appropriate anxiety questionnaires between 14-28 April 2020. Cases also provided food allergy-related data, and completed the Food Allergy Quality of Life Questionnaire (FAQLQ). In-depth interviews were subsequently conducted with purposefully-selected cases.
Results
Of N=580, 5.5% were cases and 94.5% were controls. For mothers with children 0-1.5 years, anxiety levels did not differ between cases and controls. For mothers with children 1.5-8 years, anxiety levels were higher in cases vs. controls (p<0.05). Amongst cases, neither overall nor domain-specific FAQLQ scores differed between age groups (0-3 vs. 4-7 years), even after adjustment for confounding variables, including childcare during the pandemic. Qualitatively, 3 themes were identified: Unexpected challenges of food shopping; Less food-related food anxiety during the pandemic; and Differences/delays in food allergy testing and therapy.
Conclusion
Mothers with food allergic children reported high anxiety and poor HRQL. Yet, qualitatively, day-to-day food allergy management was better during the pandemic.
“…While factors associated with FAAA could be clearly identified, they also conclude that generic anxiety and QOL tools did not accurately categorize parents with self‐reported high FAAA. Parental anxiety has been reported earlier in PAI as an important factor impacting the QoL of families with children suffering from food allergies 17,18 . …”
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