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TOPLINE:

Multiple factors affected the psychosocial burden and quality of life of children with food allergies and their parents, with more frequent or severe reactions in children and the avoidance of allergenic foods — especially milk, egg, and wheat — being key contributors to that burden.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers evaluated the psychosocial burden in parents of children with food allergies and its effect on both parental and children’s food allergy-related quality of life.
• They analyzed data from 114 children (median age, 9 years; 60.5% boys) with immunoglobulin E-mediated allergy to at least one of nine common allergenic foods (milk, egg, wheat, soy, peanut, tree nuts, sesame, fish, and shellfish) as well as data from their parents (86.5% mothers).
• Parental psychosocial burden and the quality of life and well-being of parents and caregivers were assessed using the Food Allergy Quality of Life-Parental Burden Questionnaire. The child’s psychosocial functioning across domains such as allergen avoidance and dietary restrictions, risk for accidental exposure, and emotional impact was determined using age-specific versions of the Food Allergy Quality of Life Questionnaire. Higher scores indicated a greater psychosocial burden.

TAKEAWAY:

• A greater parental burden positively correlated with the total number of lifetime allergic reactions their child had, regardless of severity (P = .0076).
• Parents of children who avoided more than two of the top nine allergenic foods reported a greater psychosocial burden than parents of children who avoided two or fewer foods (P = .0042); avoidance of milk, egg, or wheat was specifically associated with a greater burden.
• Parents who worked in healthcare reported a lower burden than parents in other occupations (P = .0068). Parents of children who had ever undergone an oral food challenge also reported a greater burden than those whose children had not (P = .0014).
• Parents reported more severe psychosocial impairment than their children aged 2-7 and 8-12 years but better psychosocial functioning than their children aged 13 years or older.

IN PRACTICE:

“Our findings further suggest that targeted interventions — such as structured education on reaction management, balanced counseling regarding allergen avoidance, and strategies to improve confidence in label interpretation — may help mitigate psychosocial burden and warrant evaluation in future interventional studies,” the authors of the study wrote.

SOURCE:

Pamela A. Frischmeyer-Guerrerio, MD, PhD, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, was the corresponding author of the study, which was published online on May 20, 2026, in Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

LIMITATIONS:

The children were recruited at a tertiary care referral center and may not represent the broader food allergy population. The sample size was determined by feasibility rather than by a formal power calculation. Consequently, the study lacked sufficient statistical power to detect differences in parental burden across racial and ethnic groups.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, and partial funding through federal funds from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health. No relevant conflicts of interest were reported by the authors.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.