ABSTRACT
Childhood food allergy is a chronic immunological condition that affects approximately 6-8% of children. Food protein-induced immune reactions can vary in intensity from mild to fatal. There is a risk of anaphylactic shock in the case of severe food allergies, which requires immediate emergency intervention. In the lack of symptoms, food allergy is invisible to outsiders, which could often cause difficulties in communication and avoidance behavior in involved families. Parents are responsible for representing their child's condition in everyday life. The current study focuses on the caregiver's perspective and draws attention to the challenges of severe childhood food allergies and the complexity of adaptive disease management. The study aims to provide insight into what difficulties the affected parents face, what characteristics they show, and what psychological methods and techniques can help them adapt and cope better, according to the existing recommendations and intervention studies. In this way, adequate adherence to medical treatments is also ensured, contributing to the healthier personality development of children. Orv Hetil. 2022; 163(47): 1855-1861.
Subject(s)
Anaphylaxis , Food Hypersensitivity , Child , Humans , Food Hypersensitivity/therapy , Food Hypersensitivity/diagnosis , Anaphylaxis/etiology , Allergens , Parents/psychology , EatingABSTRACT
During the last decades, the prevalence of allergy has dramatically increased. Allergen-specific immunotherapy is the only currently available medical intervention that has the potential to affect the natural course of the disease, but there are still many questions and unmet needs hindering its widespread use to fulfill its treatment potential and maximize its benefits for the society. To provide a comprehensive phenome-wide overview in sublingual immunotherapy, using ragweed allergy as a target, we planned and carried out a longitudinal, prospective, observational, open-label study (DesensIT). In this paper we present challenges of using deep and comprehensive phenotypes embracing biological, clinical and patient-reported outcomes in allergen-specific immunotherapy and show how we designed the DesensIT project to optimize data collection, processing and evaluation.
