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摘要
Objective. To develop a questionnaire as a screening tool for adverse reactions to foods in children and to assess the technical reproducibility by test-retest. Methods. Reproducibility of the questionnaire was performed by the literature review, preparing the preliminary questionnaire, peer review, pretest, and retest analysis. The study of the test-retest reproducibility was cross-sectional and descriptive. Kappa coefficient was used to study the reproducibility of the questionnaire. The sample consisted of 125 2每4 year-old children from 15 daycare centers in Recife, Brazil, and interviews with parents or caregivers were used to collect data. Results. From the total children, sixty-three were boys (50.4%), forty-six were two years old (36.8%), forty-seven were three years old (37.6%), and thirty-two were four years old (25.6%). Forty caregivers reported that their child had health problems with food. Most frequently reported offending foods were milk, peanuts, shrimp, and chocolate. Nine questions showed a good Kappa index (≡0,6). Conclusions. The questionnaire used needs to be resized and reshaped on the basis of the issues with good internal consistency and reproducibility. The use of a validated and reproducible questionnaire in the children represents an important contribution towards assessing an eventual rise in overt food allergy. 1. Introduction An adverse food reaction consists of any abnormal reaction to the ingestion of food or additives, and it can be either toxic or nontoxic. Non-toxic adverse food reactions are related to the individual susceptibility and include food allergy, in which there is participation of immunological mechanisms which may or may not involve immunoglobulin E (IgE) [1, 2]. There has been an increase in the incidence of food allergy and a change in patterns of its presentation in several countries, especially in the most developed ones. For some authors the hygiene theory may be involved, which postulates that environmental changes in the industrialized world would induce a lower frequency of contact with infectious agents at an early age, thereby resulting in an increase in the tendency towards developing allergic diseases [3, 4]. In any case, rates of food allergy vary according to the studied population, its age, customs, or local diet, among other factors [5]. The prevalence observed in children under three years of age is estimated, on the basis of various studies, to range between 5% and 8%, and from 1% to 2% in adults [6每10]. In an epidemiological survey carried out in Brazil, suspected food allergy was
- 出版日期2013
