title: Adverse reactions to foods and food allergy: development and reproducibility of a questionnaire for clinical diagnosis.
abstract: Objective. To develop a questionnaire as a screening tool for adverse reactions to foods in children and to assess the technical reproducibility by test-retest. Methods. Reproducibility of the questionnaire was performed by the literature review, preparing the preliminary questionnaire, peer review, pretest, and retest analysis. The study of the test-retest reproducibility was cross-sectional and descriptive. Kappa coefficient was used to study the reproducibility of the questionnaire. The sample consisted of 125 2-4 year-old children from 15 daycare centers in Recife, Brazil, and interviews with parents or caregivers were used to collect data. Results. From the total children, sixty-three were boys (50.4%), forty-six were two years old (36.8%), forty-seven were three years old (37.6%), and thirty-two were four years old (25.6%). Forty caregivers reported that their child had health problems with food. Most frequently reported offending foods were milk, peanuts, shrimp, and chocolate. Nine questions showed a good Kappa index (≥0,6). Conclusions. The questionnaire used needs to be resized and reshaped on the basis of the issues with good internal consistency and reproducibility. The use of a validated and reproducible questionnaire in the children represents an important contribution towards assessing an eventual rise in overt food allergy.
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Centro de Pesquisas em Alergia e Imunologia Clínica (HC/UFPE) Av, Professor Moraes Rêgo s/n, Cidade Universitária, 50670-420 Recife, PE, Brazil.
authors.forename: Nilza R S
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Lyra
authors.forename: Maria E F A
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Motta
authors.forename: Luiz A R
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Rocha
authors.forename: Dirceu
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Solé
authors.forename: Décio M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Peixoto
authors.forename: José A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Rizzo
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Taborda-Barata
authors.forename: Emanuel S C
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Sarinho