Moderators of Child Anxiety due to Food Allergy

Abstract

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate contextual factors that affect food allergic children's development of anxiety. It was hypothesized that parent stress, anxiety, family functioning, and child attitudes would moderate the relationship between food allergy severity and child anxiety. Recency of allergic reaction was also hypothesized to moderate the relationship between parent and child anxiety. Twenty-two participants with food allergies and their parents were surveyed electronically to ascertain the degree to which they endorsed symptoms on these scales as well as on food allergy and family specific questionnaires. Possibly due to a small sample, no moderating effects were found to be significant. However, analyses indicated that while holding parental stress and anxiety constant, food allergy severity leads to child anxiety. Family cohesiveness, recency of last reaction, and child attitudes presented various significant correlations with child or family contextual factors, however did not provide enough evidence to make directional conclusions. Preliminary findings warrant the inclusion of food allergy-specific questions to screen for parent and child anxiety. Implications and areas of future research are discussed while considering the limitations of the current study.