Experiences and attitudes of parents of children with cow’s milk and other food-allergy

ABSTRACT

Introduction and objective: The attitude and behaviors of parents are important in the man-agement of children with food allergy (FA). The aim of this study is to evaluate th e experi-ences and attitudes of parents of children with allergy to cow’s milk and other FA.Materials and methods: The parents of children with FA were asked to complete an 18-item questionnaire to evaluate the FA history and experiences during diagnosis, treatment, and follow up.Results:Th e dat a fro m 55 8 (91.2%) surve y questionnaire tha t wer e fille d completely wer e ana-lyzed. The mean age of the parents was 33.4+4.9. It was found that most common food aller-gen was cow’s milk (85.3%). The mean time to diagnosis from the onset of symptoms was 10.9±18.4 months. Around 22 9 parents (41.6%) admitted to at leas t fou r different physicians and 68 (12.3%) parents admitted to at leas t fiv e different physicians before diagnosis. Th e median time to d iagnosis from the o nset of s ymptoms was five ( 1-108) months in t he p atients admitted to four or more physicians, but it was one (1-48) month in the patients that admitted to less physicians (p<0.001). The most common symptoms were dermatitis and mucus-bloody stool, the least common ones were cardiovascular symptoms. Only 21.1% of the patients were able to use hypoallergenic formulas (HAF) in accordance with the recommendation of the physician.Conclusions: Delayed diagnosis of FA is a major concern, and during this period the patients admi t man y physicians. A majority of th e patients wit h CMP A experience difficulties while using HAFs, and only one-fifth of them is able to use formula regularly (AU)