VIDEO: How to assess, treat children with food allergy anxiety

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In this Healio exclusive, Katherine K. Dahlsgaard, PhD, ABPP, discusses tools that are available to help allergists assess and treat children for anxiety pertaining to their food allergy.

“Often, allergists are so busy in their practice, that they only have time for a quick, ‘Hey, in the last year since I’ve seen you, have you had a reaction?’” Dahlsgaard, licensed psychologist and pediatric anxiety specialist, told Healio. “Then they will write down, OK, the food allergy is well managed. But if they don’t assess for anxiety, they don’t know if the reason the patient is ‘doing well’ is actually because the kid isn’t going to school or isn’t eating in the lunchroom because they’re afraid.”

Summarizing her presentation at the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Annual Scientific Meeting, Dahlsgaard encouraged clinicians to assess their patients for excessive anxiety that leads to medically unnecessary avoidance. Assessment tools include the Scale of Food Allergy Anxiety, or SOFAA, which she developed with colleagues at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“Clinicians can quickly scan their answers and say, ‘Oh, I see that you haven’t gone to a restaurant all year. All right. Let’s talk about that,’” she said.

Once anxiety has been identified, exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy can help patients overcome these fears.

“Proximity exposures work really well,” she said.

“We took severely anxious kids with food allergies down to looking like other kids,” she added.

Watch the video for more.

Reference:

• Dahlsgaard KK. Specific tools for the anxious food allergy patient. Presented at: ACAAI Annual Scientific Meeting; Nov. 10-14, 2022; Louisville, Ky.