PMID- 22239653
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20121018
LR  - 20151119
IS  - 1365-2222 (Electronic)
IS  - 0954-7894 (Linking)
VI  - 42
IP  - 7
DP  - 2012 Jul
TI  - Quality of life measures for food allergy.
PG  - 1014-20
LID - 10.1111/j.1365-2222.2011.03927.x [doi]
AB  - Food allergy has become an emerging health problem in Western societies. Although 
      food allergy is characterized by a relatively low mortality and an almost 
      continual absence of physical symptoms, food allergic patients are continually 
      confronted with the possibility of potentially severe reactions and the necessity 
      of dietary vigilance. Health-related quality of life (HRQL) may be the only 
      meaningful outcome measure available for food allergy measuring this continuous 
      burden. HRQL may be measured with generic or disease-specific instruments. 
      Generic instruments may be relatively unresponsive to differences or changes in 
      health status, whereas disease-specific instruments are generally more sensitive 
      for relatively subtle problems related to a particular illness. Recently, a 
      number of disease-specific questionnaires have become available to measure the 
      HRQL of food allergic patients. An important area for further research is the 
      interpretation of the outcome of HRQL measures. In this respect, the minimal 
      clinically important difference (MCID) is of special interest. In combination 
      with the numbers needed to treat (NNT), this may give an ultimate insight into 
      the clinical relevance of an intervention. Since there is still no cure for food 
      allergy, the only available treatment is strict avoidance of the culprit food and 
      provision of emergency treatment. The double-blind placebo-controlled food 
      challenge (DBPCFC) is considered to be the gold standard for diagnosing food 
      allergy. A number of studies have investigated the perceptions of parents whose 
      children underwent a DBPCFC. In contrast to the parental perception, there is 
      much currently still unknown about the effects of undergoing a DBPCFC in the 
      perceptions of patients. In addition to the research on MCID and NNT of food 
      allergy HRQL questionnaires, further research should focus on deriving 
      quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) from food allergy HRQL questionnaires and the 
      application of food allergy HRQL questionnaires at the individual patient level 
      in clinical practice.
CI  - (c) 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
FAU - Flokstra-de Blok, B M J
AU  - Flokstra-de Blok BM
AD  - Department of General Practice, GRIAC Research Institute, University Medical 
      Center Groningen, PO Box 30.001, 9700 RB Groningen, The Netherlands.
FAU - Dubois, A E J
AU  - Dubois AE
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Review
DEP - 20120112
PL  - England
TA  - Clin Exp Allergy
JT  - Clinical and experimental allergy : journal of the British Society for Allergy 
      and Clinical Immunology
JID - 8906443
SB  - IM
MH  - Double-Blind Method
MH  - *Food Hypersensitivity
MH  - *Health Status
MH  - Humans
MH  - *Quality of Life
MH  - Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
MH  - *Surveys and Questionnaires
EDAT- 2012/01/14 06:00
MHDA- 2012/10/19 06:00
CRDT- 2012/01/14 06:00
PHST- 2012/01/14 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2012/01/14 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2012/10/19 06:00 [medline]
AID - 10.1111/j.1365-2222.2011.03927.x [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Clin Exp Allergy. 2012 Jul;42(7):1014-20. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2222.2011.03927.x. 
      Epub 2012 Jan 12.