Food allergy quality of life and living with food allergy :

The Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) assesses how people spend their time and how they experience the various activities and settings of their lives, combining features of time-budget measurement and experience sampling. Participants systematically reconstruct their activities and experiences of the preceding day with procedures designed to reduce recall biases. The DRM's utility is shown by documenting close correspondences between the DRM reports of 909 employed women and established results from experience sampling. An analysis of the hedonic treadmill shows the DRM's potential for well-being research.

To systematically review the literature published since 1999 on paediatric health-related quality of life (HRQL) in relation to parent-child agreement. Literature searches used to identify studies which evaluated parent-child agreement for child HRQL measures. Nineteen studies were identified, including four HRQL instruments. The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) was most commonly used. Differences in parent-child agreement were noted between domains for different measures. The impact of child and parent characteristics were not consistently considered; however parents of children in a nonclinical sample tended to report higher child HRQL scores than children themselves, while parents of children with health conditions tended to underestimate child HRQL. Despite increasing numbers of studies considering children's HRQL, information about variables contributing to parent-child agreement levels remains limited. Authors need to consistently provide evidence for reliability and validity of measures, and design studies to systematically investigate variables that impact on levels of parent-child agreement.

The goals were to estimate the prevalence of food allergy and to describe trends in food allergy prevalence and health care use among US children. A cross-sectional survey of data on food allergy among children <18 years of age, as reported in the 1997-2007 National Health Interview Survey, 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1993-2006 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, and 1998-2006 National Hospital Discharge Survey, was performed. Reported food allergies, serum immunoglobulin E antibody levels for specific foods, ambulatory care visits, and hospitalizations were assessed. In 2007, 3.9% of US children <18 years of age had reported food allergy. The prevalence of reported food allergy increased 18% (z = 3.4; P < .01) from 1997 through 2007. In 2005-2006, serum immunoglobulin E antibodies to peanut were detectable for an estimated 9% of US children. Ambulatory care visits tripled between 1993 and 2006 (P < .01). From 2003 through 2006, an estimated average of 317000 food allergy-related, ambulatory care visits per year (95% confidence interval: 195000-438000 visits per year) to emergency and outpatient departments and physician's offices were reported. Hospitalizations with any recorded diagnoses related to food allergy also increased between 1998-2000 and 2004-2006, from an average of 2600 discharges per year to 9500 discharges per year (z = 3.4; P < .01), possibly because of increased use of food allergy V codes. Several national health surveys indicate that food allergy prevalence and/or awareness has increased among US children in recent years.