None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Children who have nut allergies must avoid that nut in their diet, but this can be difficult to achieve. Young children may be unable to tell different nuts apart due to similarities in appearance. Nuts can also be present in baked goods, dips, muesli bars and other foods, requiring reading of the label. Some children are also allergic to more than one nut adding complexity to this process. Having a child who is allergic to nuts can also cause anxiety around social events such as parties and school camps and can have a significant impact on quality of life of both the parents and child. Due to the difficult nature of avoiding one type of nut, in the past it has been common for parents to avoid all nuts, either on advice of their doctor, or for their own peace of mind. More recently however, it appears that there may be benefits from having ongoing exposure to non-allergic nuts in our diets. Totally avoiding nuts we are not allergic to may increase the risk of developing an allergy to this nut later on. Parents of children with nut allergy are now being advised to include non-allergic nuts in their child’s diet on an ongoing basis. To ingest the suggested amount of nut as often as required can be difficult. In this study, we will provide to the intervention group, a resource which aims to help parents achieve this. It contains a series of recipes and suggestions for including nuts in every day foods to provide an alternative to eating whole nuts. This group will also receive monthly text messages reminding them to include non-allergic nuts in the diet. We also hope that this will increase knowledge surrounding the intake of nuts, reduce anxiety and help to improve quality of life for these families.
Interventions
Intervention is a dietitian based written resource providing recipes and advice to help include non-allergic nuts into the diet. This is given after consent to the intervention group. The intervention group also recieve reminder text messages at monthly intervals commencing one month after consent, for 6 months (5 text messages).
Children are advised to eat the non-allergic nut, at least once per week, of an amount based on age:
1-6 years: 10g nuts =1/2 Tbs of nut paste
7-12 years: 20g nuts =1/
Intervention is a dietitian based written resource providing recipes and advice to help include non-allergic nuts into the diet. This is given after consent to the intervention group. The intervention group also recieve reminder text messages at monthly intervals commencing one month after consent, for 6 months (5 text messages). Children are advised to eat the non-allergic nut, at least once per week, of an amount based on age: 1-6 years: 10g nuts =1/2 Tbs of nut paste 7-12 years: 20g nuts =1/4 cup nuts = 1 Tbs nut paste 13-18 years: 30g nuts = 1/3 cup nuts = 1.5 Tbs nut paste The efficacy of the intervention will be determined 6 months after randomisation by a one month dietary recall of how many of the previous 4 weeks the weekly target has been met.
Sponsors
Women's and Children's Hospital Allergy/Immunology Department
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Prevention
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
12 Months to 18 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Children between the ages of 12 months and 18 years with likely or known nut allergy as defined by positive challenge and/or positive skin prick test (>3mm) Children will be required to have evidence that they are not allergic to at least one or more other nuts by negative skin prick testing, negative challenge or already tolerating the nut in normal dietary intake.
Exclusion criteria
Known or likely allergy to all nuts by positive skin prick testing or positive challenge.
Outcome results
None listed