Volume 24, Issue 102, March - April, 2020

Awareness about diagnosis and management of food allergy among general population in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Rasha Alharbi¹, Husam Malibary^1♦, Jihan Siddiqui¹, Sultan Alandijani²

¹Department of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
²Department of Medicine, King Faisal Specialist Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

^♦Corresponding author
Department of Medicine, King AbdulAziz University, Jeddah 21589, P.O. Box 80215, Saudi Arabia. Email: hmmalibary@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT

Background: Food allergy is a prevalent disease. Lack of awareness about diagnosis and management is a major factor on morbidity and mortality. Methods: A questionnaire was distributed to 1260 volunteers to assess their awareness about food allergy diagnosis and management in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Results: Among 1260 participants, 20% reported previous diagnosis with food allergy. 57.1% of them were diagnosed by blood or skin test, whereas 42.9% were not diagnosed by specific investigations. 35.7% of non allergic, and 18.2% of allergic participants didn’t know the accurate methods for food allergy diagnosis (P value = 0.0001). 18.2%of the non-allergic participants, and 7.1% of the allergic participants did not know the proper ways to avoid allergic food reactions (P value = 0.0001). Conclusion: Up to our knowledge, there are no studies looked at level of knowledge about food allergy diagnosis and management among general population in Saudi Arabia. Our study demonstrates significant deficiency in knowledge level and hence emphasizes the importance of increasing awareness about proper food allergy diagnosis and management to decrease morbidity and mortality associated with this prevalent disease.

Keywords: food, allergy, awareness, knowledge, Saudi Arabia

Medical Science, 2020, 24(102), 905-911

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