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Quality‐of‐life assessment in Chinese families with food‐allergic children
Author(s) -
Leung T. F.,
Yung E.,
Wong Y. S.,
Li C. Y.,
Wong G. W. K.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
clinical and experimental allergy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.462
H-Index - 154
eISSN - 1365-2222
pISSN - 0954-7894
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2222.2008.03192.x
Subject(s) - interquartile range , medicine , cronbach's alpha , quality of life (healthcare) , food allergy , pediatrics , allergy , health related quality of life , demography , environmental health , psychometrics , clinical psychology , immunology , disease , nursing , sociology
Summary 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 α 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 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 voidance and AFR caused by multiple foods are independent risk factors for lower parental QoL.