Workshops Help Allergy Parents Cope

Judging by many of the emails I've received over the years, learning that your child has a food allergy and that all dairy - or wheat or eggs or all three - must be taken out of the diet is not just scary but almost unbearable news. The burdens imposed seem so heavy and will last so long that some parents can't cope with the stress.

Something that appears to help parents a great deal are workshops designed to provide support and coping skills to families. A new study, Evaluation of a group intervention for children with food allergy and their parents, Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology
2008, vol. 101, no. 2, pp. 160-165, by Jennifer S. LeBovidge et al. gave promising news.

Abstract
Background: Children with food allergy and their parents may experience substantial stress related to the risk of serious reactions and the demands of allergy management.

Objective: To evaluate a group intervention for children with food allergy and their parents designed to increase parent-perceived competence in coping with food allergy and to decrease the parent-perceived burden associated with food allergy.

Methods: Sixty-one children aged 5 to 7 years with food allergy and their parents attended 1 of 4 half-day workshops, with parent and child groups run concurrently. Parents completed self-report measures of perceived competence in coping with food allergy at 3 time points: preworkshop (within 8 weeks of the intervention), postworkshop (immediately after the intervention), and follow-up (4-8 weeks after the intervention). Parents completed a measure of burden associated with food allergy at preworkshop and follow-up. Parents and children also completed evaluations of the study intervention.

Results: Parent-perceived competence in coping with food allergy increased significantly from preworkshop to postworkshop and follow-up, and parent-perceived burden associated with food allergy decreased from preworkshop to follow-up. Parent and child evaluations of the workshop were favorable.

Conclusions: These findings provide preliminary support for the effectiveness and feasibility of a group intervention for children with food allergy and their parents and suggest the importance of controlled evaluations of group interventions in this population in the future.

Bottom line, it "showed parents with higher competence scores and lower burden scores regarding their child's food allergy," according to an article by Joene Hendry of the Reuters News Service.