Workshops help cope with food-allergy

Workshops designed to provide support and coping skills to families with children allergic to nuts, eggs, milk, shellfish, or other foods, appear to benefit both parents and children alike.It has been seen that children with food allergy and their parents experience substantial stress related to the risk of serious reactions. Researchers from America studied 61 children aged 5 to 7 years old who were allergic to certain food items and the parents were asked to attend 1 of 4 half-day workshops designed to provide practical and emotional support that might better enable both parents and children handle the stress of food allergies. They conducted the study to evaluate the group intervention for children with food allergy and their parents made to increase parent-perceived competence in coping with food allergy and to decrease the parent-perceived burden associated with food allergy. The parents completed the self-report measures of perceived competence in coping with food allergy at pre-workshop (within 8 weeks of intervention), post-workshop (immediately after the intervention) and follow-up (4-8 weeks after the intervention). They completed a measure of burden associated with food allergy at the workshop and the follow-up. Compared with pre-workshop survey data, post-workshop results showed parents with higher competence scores and lower burden scores regarding their child's food allergy.The researchers concluded that the workshops had a positive effect on the parents. They also advised the parents about the food allergy risks and safety procedures, how to help their children to manage and cope with their allergy and how not to pass their own anxieties to their children.

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