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?:abstract
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BACKGROUND: Food allergy has a known impact on quality of life (QoL), but this has not been extensively studied during the COVID-19 pandemic OBJECTIVE: The objective of this mixed methods study was to characterize the levels of anxiety of mothers of food allergic children aged 0-8 years, compared to families without a food allergic child, as well as health-related quality of life (HRQL) amongst food allergic children during the COVID-19 pandemic METHODS: In a mixed methods study of Canadian mothers of children 0-8 years, food allergic cases and non-allergic controls provided demographic data, and completed age-appropriate anxiety questionnaires between 14-28 April 2020 Cases also provided food allergy-related data, and completed the Food Allergy Quality of Life Questionnaire (FAQLQ) In-depth interviews were subsequently conducted with purposefully-selected cases RESULTS: Of N=580, 5 5% were cases and 94 5% were controls For mothers with children 0-1 5 years, anxiety levels did not differ between cases and controls For mothers with children 1 5-8 years, anxiety levels were higher in cases vs controls (p<0 05) Amongst cases, neither overall nor domain-specific FAQLQ scores differed between age groups (0-3 vs 4-7 years), even after adjustment for confounding variables, including childcare during the pandemic Qualitatively, 3 themes were identified: Unexpected challenges of food shopping;Less food-related food anxiety during the pandemic;and Differences/delays in food allergy testing and therapy CONCLUSION: Mothers with food allergic children reported high anxiety and poor HRQL Yet, qualitatively, day-to-day food allergy management was better during the pandemic
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