Status survey and training efficiency of food allergy knowledge among pediatric medical worker

Objective: To investigate the status and influencing factors of diagnosis and treatment of food allergy knowledge in pediatric medical workers, and formulate a targeted training course for pediatricians to evaluate its training effect. Methods: A web-based questionnaire survey was conducted to investigate the current situation of food allergy knowledge among some pediatric medical workers nationwide from April 22 to 24, 2019. Then a 2.5-day training course was designed based on the survey. General pediatricians and primary care pediatricians were recruited into the offline training from November 8 to 10, 2019. The short-term and long-term effects of the training were evaluated through three online questionnaires before, at the end of the training and two months after the training, respectively. The characteristics of the respondents, the correct rate and the qualification rate of questions (more than 60% correct answers) were analyzed. Logistic regression model was used to assess the influencing factors of the qualified rate of food allergy knowledge. Chi-square test was used to analyze the difference of the qualified rate at different time point of the training. Results: Totally 1 187 participants from 28 provinces of China completed the web-based survey. The average correct rate of knowledge related to diagnosis and treatment of food allergy was 38.8% (461/1 187) and 28.8% (342/1 187), respectively. The correct rate of each knowledge related to food allergy ranged from 18.6% (221/1 187) to 63.4% (753/1 187), while the qualified rate was only 12.6% (150/1 187); 86.7% (1 029/1 187) participants could recognize the early symptoms of severe anaphylaxis and 93.3% (1 107/1 187) of them chose epinephrine as a first-line drug for severe anaphylaxis. Logistic regression analysis showed that the professional title (OR 1.427, 95% CI 1.119-1.818) and hospital level (OR 1.866, 95%CI 1.378-2.527) were the independent risk factors for the correct rate of food allergy knowledge. Sixty-nine pediatricians participated in the targeted training. There was a significant difference regarding the qualified rate of food allergy knowledge among the trainees before training (45.5% (20/44)), at the end of training (78.0% (46/59)) and two months after training (13/14) (χ(2)=16.8, P<0.01). Conclusions: The knowledge of food allergy on diagnosis and management among Chinese pediatric medical workers is unsatisfactory. Targeted offline training could continuously improve the level of diagnosis and treatment in a long period.