United States: A new study reveals that the overwhelming majority of persons with food allergy, or providing primary care for children who have this allergy, experienced psychological trauma as a result of it.
But according to the same report, for instance, only one in every five such people can ever recall having been evaluated let alone counseled on their worries.
“Our study points to a significant gap in psychological intervention for food allergy,” added Rebecca Knibb, a psychology professor at Aston University in Birmingham, England.
As reported by Health Day, the main source of worry: The wide potential for anaphylactic shock – a fatal allergic reaction to even a tiny amount of the food that the person or their child is allergic to.
The new research was based on an online poll conducted among 1,319 adults with food allergy and 1,977 caregivers of children with food allergy. The survey respondents include more than 20 countries.
In total, nearly 68% of the adults with FA said that they had direct experience of psychological distress as a result of the condition, and almost 78% of the carers of children with FA.
Eating in restaurants was the most common perceived concern, with most of the people stating that their primary cause of worry was severe anaphylactic reaction [74.7%], while over half [54.1%] of the people felt sad on the effects of food allergy in their lives – a revelation that Knibb’s team documented.
From the caregivers of the kids with food allergy, about 35% of them were worried that the condition would make their kid a subject of bullying.
More clearly, there was still the constant sense that the parents of children with food allergy let others underestimated the severity of the problem.
Among the findings, the researchers said that caregivers reported fear of, trusting others with care of their child [71%]. “More than half of the respondents expressed concern that people fail to appreciate the condition seriousness that their child suffers from food allergy despite being briefed on the same issue [59.7%].”
On the other hand just 20 percent of the people with food allergy or the parents of the children with food allergy had ever been screened by a doctor to their levels of anxiety that’s what the study found.
The main barrier to folks seeking the screening and psychological help was cost.
“The cost of the support is a significant barrier across all countries in our survey and the ways of providing free and easily accessible support is clearly needed,” Knibb said in a university news release.
The findings were published recently in the journal Allergy.