Aston University Team Wins Funding From US National Peanut Board To Develop Online Food Allergy Support Too

A team led by Aston University's Professor Rebecca Knibb in the School of Psychology has been awarded a grant by the US National Peanut Board (NPB) to develop an online food allergy support tool.

Food Allergy Coping Empowerment Tools and Support, or FACETS, is a self-directed online support tool for coping with food allergy for adults with food allergy and for caregivers of children with food allergy. FACETS is based on psychological theory such as cognitive behavioural therapy, and has been developed by psychologists, adult patients and caregivers based in the UK, US, Australia and Canada. It focuses on aspects patients and caregivers said they needed support with.

FACETS, which is still under development, is interactive and has a number of modules, such as managing anxiety and communicating about food allergy. The modules include information and exercises to do, for example practising asking about allergens in a restaurant. There are sections where the user can answer questions or set goals and the system saves these, as well as the user's progress as they work through each module. The tool is being developed in conjunction with Design Factory Birmingham, a creative design and digital innovation space at Aston University,

FACETS forms part of the Global Access to Psychological Services (GAPS) study, a multinational collaboration of researchers, clinicians, patients and patient organisations, who have been exploring psychological support needs and people's experiences of healthcare services across more than 20 countries worldwide.

Professor Knibb said:

"The money from NPB will let us build further modules requested by patients and caregivers, such as managing stress, and we will also work with adolescents to develop modules specifically for them. We will then test the effectiveness of the new modules in a pilot study to see if they also reduce anxiety, improve quality of life and self-efficacy. The end goal is to be able to provide FACETS free to anyone who wishes to use it. Before we can do that, we need to ensure it is helpful - which is why it is not publicly available yet. The research will be run next year and FACETS will be made available to the public once the programme has been evaluated."

The grant to Professor Knibb and the FACETS team is one of nine given by the NPB in its most recent round of funding for food allergy research, which totalled more than US$450,000. It was the only grant given outside the US.

NPB president and CEO Ryan Lepicier said:

"The National Peanut Board is proud to play a catalytic role in allergy research - often providing the seed funding that allows promising projects in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management to attract additional investment and create broader impact for families and patients."