title: Quality-of-life assessment in Chinese families with food-allergic children.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Caucasian families with food-allergic children have a compromised quality of life (QoL) for fear of life-threatening food reactions. Such data are limited in Asian children. Based on our recent questionnaire-based survey, 8.1% of young children recruited from local nurseries and kindergartens had parent-reported adverse food reactions (AFRs).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study tested the robustness of the Chinese Food Allergy Quality of Life-Parental Burden questionnaire (FAQL-PB) and assessed QoL in families with childhood AFR. The correlations among FAQL-PB items were evaluated by factor analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two hundred and ninety-eight of 3677 children aged 2-7 years had parent-reported AFR, and 197 (66.1%) of them completed the 17 items of our self-administered FAQL-PB. Six hundred and thirty-nine (18.9%) children without AFR returned this questionnaire. Factor analysis was used to delineate the inter-relationship among the FAQL-PB items.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Cronbach alpha for our Chinese FAQL-PB was 0.976, and the median (interquartile range) FAQL-PB scores of children with and without parent-reported AFR were 0.10 (0.02-0.32) and 0 (0-0.18), respectively (P < 0.001). Factor analysis confirmed excellent correlations between FAQL-PB items. The 17 items were clustered into two factors, which explained 79.7% of the total variance. Among children with AFR, FAQL-PB scores increased with increasing numbers of foods that caused AFRs (P < 0.001 for trend). Thirty (15.2%) children had impaired QoL, defined as average item FAQL-PB score > or = 0.5. Impaired QoL was associated with AFR that was caused by >3 foods (P = 0.001), current food avoidance (P = 0.005) and AFR caused by peanut (P = 0.003), egg (P = 0.011) and cow's milk (P = 0.028), and current flexural dermatitis (P = 0.011).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  FAQL-PB is a robust measure of AFR-specific parental QoL, which is impaired in Chinese children with parent-reported AFR. Flexural dermatitis, current food avoidance and AFR caused by multiple foods are independent risk factors for lower parental QoL.
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatrics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin, Hong Kong. tfleung@cuhk.edu.hk
authors.forename: T F
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Leung
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yung
authors.forename: Y S
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: C Y
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: G W K
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Wong
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D005512:Food Hypersensitivity / Q000276:immunology* / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires