Parental stress and food allergy phenotypes in young children: A National Birth Cohort (JECS)

Background: Food allergy children and their families tend to have emotional distress and anxiety. There have been few reports of differences in parenting stress and a child's food allergy phenotypes. Methods: We examined the associations between food allergy phenotypes in children and parenting stress assessed by the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF) from a national birth cohort (Japan Environment and Children's Study). Results: We included 65,805 children for statistical analysis. Of them, 7.2% of children had a food allergy diagnosis at 2 years old. The means of the total PSI-SF (39.9 ± 10.3, 39.1 ± 9.9), CD-SF (19.5 ± 5.4, 19.1 ± 5.2), and PD-SF (20.5 ± 6.3, 20.0 ± 6.1) scores are similar for caregivers in the with and without food allergy groups. Food allergy diagnosis resulted in significantly higher total PSI scores (coefficient.47, 95% CI 0.19–0.75, p =.001), CD-SF (coefficient.22, 95% CI 0.07–0.38, p =.004), and PD-SF (coefficient.24, 95% CI 0.08–0.41, p =.004). A similar trend was observed for allergy reactions to hen's egg. However, there was no clear relationship between allergic reactions to milk, wheat, nuts, and PSI-SF. Conclusions: Parental stress was significantly related to a child's food allergy. Furthermore, hen's egg allergy increased parental stress. Multiple food avoidance might also increase parental stress. Healthcare providers need to be aware of parental stress in our daily clinic.