Improved quality of life in children with allergic conjunctivitis and their parents with anti-allergic therapy
Reviewed by Lucy Osborne

This prospective intervention study investigated the change in quality of life in child-parent pairs with allergic conjunctivitis (AC) on anti-allergic therapy. From September 2020 to May 2021, AC child-parent pairs and healthy child-parent pairs were recruited in Guangzhou, China. Children aged 5–18 years with a diagnosis of AC were included, defined by American Academy of Ophthalmology diagnostic criteria. Children with other active allergic diseases or ocular diseases or ocular trauma or systemic disease or inability to communicate were excluded. Healthy children aged 5–18 years acted as the control group. Anti-allergic therapy for those with seasonal AC and perennial AC was 0.1% oloparadine hydrochloride ophthalmic solution twice daily, and for those with vernal keratoconjunctivitis and atopic keratoconjunctivitis included 0.1% oloparadine hydrochloride ophthalmic solution twice daily and 0.1% tacrolimus ophthalmic suspension twice daily. Quality of life was measured using the Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory Version 4 (PedsQL), which scores physical functioning, emotional functioning, social functioning and school functioning out of a total of 100. For parents, the PedsQL Family Impact Module was used. Sixty AC child-parent pairs and 45 healthy child-parent pairs were compared. The mean ages of children and parents in the AC group were 7.40 ± 2.31 and 35.5 ± 4.84 years respectively, and 20% of the children were female and 76.4% of the parents were female. After treatment lasting 8.96 ± 5.03 weeks, children with AC had successfully controlled symptoms and PedsQL scores improved significantly. In children, baseline PedsQL scores improved from 82.1 ± 13.0 to 89.0 ± 11.7 after treatment, p<0.001. In parents, PedsQL Family Impact Module scores improved from 69.7 ± 17.2 to 79.3 ± 15.9 after treatment, p<0.001. This was still reduced compared with the control group, in which the children scored 97.8 ± 2.8 and parents scored 95.9 ± 3.7, p<0.001. It is evident that AC has a profound effect on child and family quality of life, and anti-allergy therapy can improve this, although quality of life remains lower than children and families without AC.

Effect of anti-allergic therapy on quality of life in children with allergic conjunctivitis and their parents.
Fan Z, Yang B, Sun L, et al.
OCULAR IMMUNOLOGY AND INFLAMMATION
2023;31:1758–64.