Evaluation of the patient's diagnosis of the skin tests performed in the pediatric allergy outpatient clinic, the anxiety level of the patients and the expectations of the families from the test results

Skin tests are frequently used method when diagnosing the disease. Many families think that allergy testing will definitively find the cause of the disease. In addition, families think that the complaints will not repeat with the measures to be taken. In our study, it was aimed to investigate how families expect from allergy test results and to examine whether these tests cause fear and anxiety in children. Between November 2020 and March 2021, patients between the ages of 3 and 9 who applied to Gazi University Faculty of Medicine Child Allergy and Asthma outpatient clinic and underwent skin prick tests were given surveys to investigate this situation. When the scoring of the Children's Emotional Manifestation Scale is evaluated according to age, the scores obtained during and after the procedure decrease as the patient's age increases. The scale scores of the patients in the younger age group were found to be high, as a result, it shows that the anxiety and fear levels related to the skin test increase as the age decreases. 70.5% of the parents answered 'No' to the question "Does the allergy test cause any fear, mood-behavioral change in your child?". It has been understood that most of the parents think that the skin test is a procedure that will not cause fear, and for this reason they have their children tested.Contrary to the expectations of parents in children's skin testing was concluded to create fear. Skin prick test positivity should be interpreted correctly by physicians. It will not be the right approach to diagnose the disease and start treatment only with the result of allergy test.