Piloting the "You and Your Food Allergy" Questionnaire: A Measure of the Health-Related Quality of Life of Teenagers with Food Allergy.

Mackenzie, Heather, Roberts, Graham, Van Laar, Darren and Dean, Taraneh (2009) Piloting the "You and Your Food Allergy" Questionnaire: A Measure of the Health-Related Quality of Life of Teenagers with Food Allergy. American Academy of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology (AAAAI) Annual Meeting 2009, , Washington DC, United Kingdom. 13 - 17 Mar 2009. (doi:10.1016/j.jaci.2008.12.108).

Abstract

RATIONALE: Health-related quality of life (HRQL) is an increasingly important outcome measure. At present a validated disease-specific HRQL measure for use with UK teenagers with food allergy does not exist. The present study aimed to pilot a disease-specific HRQL measure (You and Your Food Allergy) for self-report with teenagers (aged 13-18) with food allergy.

METHODS: The questionnaire was developed based on literature and interviews with 21 teenagers with food allergy. The pilot questionnaire was completed by 102 teenagers with a range of food allergies. The questionnaire was refined using a psychometric approach. The frequency of endorsement, acceptability, percentage of inappropriate responses, item-total correlation and contribution to internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) were calculated for each item.

RESULTS: The pilot ‘You and Your Food Allergy’ questionnaire contained 53 items designed to measure aspects of the quality of life of the teenagers (answered on a 5-point Likert scale). Based on the results of the above analyses 8 items were removed as they were not sufficiently robust and 1 item was rewritten. Participants were asked to comment on any further items for inclusion. On this basis, 6 new items were added to the questionnaire.

CONCLUSIONS: Pilot findings indicate that the ‘You and Your Food Allergy’ questionnaire is suitable for teenagers with food allergy and measures salient aspects of their quality of life. The refined questionnaire must now be tested in a larger population to determine its reliability and validity.

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Contributors

Author: Heather Mackenzie

Author: Graham Roberts

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