Visual Recognition of Allergens by Allergic Patients and/or Their Parents

Food allergies are constantly increasing. Peanut and nut allergies are a major cause of allergic reactions. Diagnosed patients are also at risk, because 27% of the patients that had an allergic reaction have another one in the following year with the same food, despite a real improvement in industrial products labeling.

The investigators have observed in the allergy Unit that patients (and/or their family) following an elimination diet, sometimes since several years, use very strict elimination strategies. Those strategies sometimes lead to incapacities to recognize the allergens. Yet, a good identification of the allergen is the key to a successful elimination and the non-identification a known risk factor.

Ferdman shown in 2006 that 27% of the patients didn't recognize the allergen there were allergic to. However, this is a US study, and geographical specificities have an impact on food consumption and culture. Food allergology needs to take those two elements into account. For example, in France, a single food can have two names. It is the case of peanut, which can be called "arachide", or more frequently "cacahuète".

The goal of the study is to observe patient aptitudes to recognize peanut (and the association between the two names) and other nuts available in France and define by the European law, using a plate with various food samples in seed or in shell.

Thus, patients in care at the allergy Unit of Saint Vincent Hospital of Lille (France) and their families were surveyed with a standardized procedure at the beginning of their therapeutic education and their capacity to recognize various nuts, to identify peanut ("cacahuète" or "arachide") and to associate the two words "cacahuète" and "arachide" was assessed. It is a standard procedure in therapeutic education, and the responses have been systematically entered in the medical record.

The main objective of this study is to describe peanut or nut allergic patient capacity (adult, children and/or the family) to visually identify the foods there are allergic to.

The secondary objective of this study is to describe the capacity of patient that describe themselves as allergic to "arachide" to associate this word to the word "cacahuète".