Abstract
Background: A food allergy diagnosis is a source of anxiety which effects the quality of life (QoL) of people living with allergies and their caregivers. Furthermore, parental anxiety is a risk factor for anxiety development in children. Parental interventions have been shown to ameliorate this with some evidence showing that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for mothers of food allergic children can benefit wellbeing of mothers.
Objective: This study adapted (through PPI) and assessed the acceptability, feasibility, and provided a signal of efficacy of a two-session online CBT-based group intervention for parents with food allergic children focused on reducing anxiety and increasing QoL for both parents and their children.
Method: A mixed-method, repeated measures within-participant design was adopted. Acceptability and feasibility were assessed by retention and response rates, feedback ratings, and a subsample of eight post-intervention qualitative interviews, thematically analysed. To determine a signal of efficacy, child and parental anxiety and QoL measures were collected at baseline, immediately after the two-session parent intervention, and 1 and 3 months post-intervention.
Results: The recruitment rate was 60.3% (68/41) and retention 95% (n = 39). Feedback ratings and identified themes supported this intervention’s acceptability and feasibility. Outcome measures of parental anxiety (d = .57) and perceived food allergy-related self-efficacy (d = .76) showed improvement at 3-months. Parental depression, stress, and QoL, showed no significant post-intervention change. Parent-rated child anxiety and QoL showed trends for some age groups with no significant results when all child ages were combined.
Conclusions: This online CBT-based parent group intervention appeared acceptable, feasible, and appeared to improve parental wellbeing in the short-term. This study encourages future research to assess whether these effects are maintained and whether there is an effect on child wellbeing after a longer post intervention implementation time in an appropriately powered randomised controlled trial design.