Finalist
The APPEAL Study: Uncovering Psychosocial Burden in Peanut Allergy
Summary of work
Symptoms of peanut allergy (PA), one of the most common food allergies can be life-threatening (anaphylaxis). Despite this, the impact of PA on the individual’s quality of life (QoL) is poorly understood by the general public and health practitioners, and there are no validated models or tools to measure its impact.
To address this, we developed the APPEAL (Allergy to Peanuts Impacting Emotions and Life) study. This was the first European multi-country patient-centric, multifactorial study developed to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the burden and psychosocial impact of peanut-allergy in individuals and their caregivers.
To ensure a patient-centric outcome, we brought together representatives from Patient Advocacy Groups (PAGs) and HCPs, including a clinical psychologist, to generate scientifically robust and validated psychological data that capture the reality of the patient experience.
We co-created these studies directly with the PAGs and complemented the scientific outputs with patient-targeted animations to explain the study data; these were delivered through PAG social media channels and used in their presentations.
We are using data from APPEAL to develop conceptual models to illustrate the experience of living with PA and to assess the appropriateness of validated food allergy questionnaires used to assess QoL in PA.
Judges’ comments
This is an excellent co-creation study leading to insights that will make a difference around understanding the impact of allergy. It approached a highly relevant and widespread issue in a well-structured and well thought through manner.
