Food allergy: a proposed new tool for educating children and young people and supporting them to self-manage.

Abstract

Self-managing food allergy in children and young people presents challenges for families as they attempt to find a balance between their child's safety and freedom. Nurses have an important role in providing education that supports children, young people and their parents to self-manage food allergy safely but not at the expense of the child or young person's social development. At Nottingham Children's Hospital, the allergy service and youth service have developed an education and support tool composed of three domains, 'awareness', 'checking' and 'emergency kit', forming the acronym ACE. The authors suggest that the ACE tool could be used by healthcare professionals as a framework for educating children and young people with food allergy and their parents, as well as by children and young people and their parents at home to risk assess and risk manage everyday situations and new scenarios or events.