• To acknowledge that prevention, and therefore patient education, are key in the management of food allergy
• To source information for guiding your discussions on food allergy management with patients and families
• To learn about a new tool designed to support children and young people to self-manage their food allergy
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.
Nursing Children and Young People. doi: 10.7748/ncyp.2023.e1475
Peer reviewThis article has been subject to open peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software
Correspondence Conflict of interestNone declared
Clarke L, Caulton S, Alderson C (2023) Food allergy: a proposed new tool for educating children and young people and supporting them to self-manage. Nursing Children and Young People. doi: 10.7748/ncyp.2023.e1475
AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank Debra Forster, children’s respiratory and community nurse, Nicola Rew, clinical lead paediatric allergy dietitian, and June Richards, paediatric dermatology clinical nurse specialist, all at Nottingham Children’s Hospital, for contributing to the initial plans for the youth independence event
Published online: 04 December 2023
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