Preschool Oral Immunotherapy Is Associated With Improved Parental Food Allergy‐Specific Anxiety and Quality of Life: A Real‐World Observational Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Preschool oral immunotherapy (OIT) is safe and effective for food allergy, and may improve parental food allergy-specific anxiety (FAA) and food allergy quality of life (FAQL); however, data on these important outcomes are limited, particularly for preschoolers. Herein, we explored the relationship between OIT and parental FAA, including the subdomains: food allergy-related worries, anxiety impact, behavioural avoidance, and coping; and OIT and FAQL in parents of preschool-aged children. METHODS: Parents of preschool-aged children (< 72 months) receiving OIT in Canadian allergy clinics were eligible for this observational study. The Impairment Measure for Parental Food Allergy-Associated Anxiety and Coping Tool (IMPAACT) and the Food Allergy Quality of Life-Parental Burden (FAQL-PB) questionnaire were administered to parents at four timepoints from the start of OIT to 12 months post-build-up. The relationships between OIT and total FAA, each IMPAACT subscale, and FAQL were investigated using a series of linear mixed effect models. Each model included variables related to child age, whether child was receiving OIT to some (partial OIT) or all of (complete OIT) their allergens, time to complete build-up, and two binary variables indexing whether the child experienced a reaction during build-up or maintenance. RESULTS: Between 2021 and 2025, 788 children participated. Total IMPAACT scores decreased during OIT build-up, indicating improvement (baseline: 70.69; end of build-up: 57.36; marginal mean change: -13.33; b = -18.13; 95% CI = -27.63, -8.62, p < 0.001). IMPAACT scores significantly decreased across three subscales: Worries; anxiety impact, and behavioural avoidance. FAQL-PB scores decreased during OIT build-up (baseline: 27.35; end of build-up: 22.16; marginal mean change: -5.19; b = -7.17; 95% CI = -12.65, -1.69, p = 0.01). Child's age, partial versus complete OIT, time to complete build-up, and reactions during maintenance moderated the relationship between time and some of the outcome variables. CONCLUSION: Preschool OIT is associated with significant improvements in parent food allergy-specific anxiety and food allergy quality of life.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".