TORNA ALL’ELENCO

Validation of a specific questionnaire for quick individuation of allergic patients, the respiratory allergy predictive test in Allergy: European Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

2011
ASL Città di Torino
AOU Città della Salute di Torino
ASL Torino 3
AO Ordine Mauriziano

Tipo pubblicazione

Conference Abstract

Autori/Collaboratori (15)Vedi tutti...

Galimberti M
RSA Villa Serena, Bologna (BO), Italy
Passalacqua G
RSA Villa Serena, Bologna (BO), Italy
Sciolla N
RSA Villa Serena, Bologna (BO), Italy

et alii...

Abstract

Background: Currently, diagnostic tools for quick individuation of allergic patients to be used by general practitioners are not available. This study has the aim to validate a tool able to rapidly identify patients with respiratory allergy. Such tool is the Respiratory Allergy Predictive (RAP) test, a questionnaire including nine questions, that was initially used on 40 allergic patients and in the subsequent multicentric phase underwent to validation. Method: The nine questions used in the initial phase were analyzed by a group of experts in allergy, this resulting in modification of two questions, with the aim to obtain more clear informations about the need to refer the patient to the allergy specialist. The questionnaire was tested on 274 patients by self administration and subsequent re-testing to verify the reproducibility. The ability of the questionnaire to correctly identify allergy was assessed by the results of skin prick tests performed by the investigator allergists in blinded conditions. The concordance between the answers to the questionnaire in pre-test and re-test phases was analyzed by Cohen's Kappa Index. Result: A very high concordance was detected for all the nine questions of the RAP test addressing the most common issues of respiratory allergy. In particular, the value was 0.91 for question 1, 0.93 for question 2, 0.89 for question 3, 0.88 for question 4, 0.93 for question 5, 0.88 for question 6, 0.91 for question 7, 0.90 for question 8, and 0.94 for question 9. Conclusion: These findings suggest that a questionnaire addressing nine issues is able to identify respiratory allergy in most cases. The final phase of the study must evaluate its capacity to predict the results of diagnosis from allergy specialists.

DOI : 10.1111/j.1398-9995.2011.02606.x

Keywords

skin; exercise; flour; plant seed; legume; fruit; vegetable; sesame; population; data base; prevalence; classification; egg; Italy; checklist; Crustacea; milk; patient; fish; nut; adult; child; human; clinical immunology; register; allergic reaction; allergy; food; anaphylaxis; allergen; food allergen; epinephrine; gastrointestinal symptom; boy; male; gender; adulthood; plant; health care;