Atopic dermatitis and skin diseaseInfant-onset eczema in relation to mental health problems at age 10 years: Results from a prospective birth cohort study (German Infant Nutrition Intervention plus)
Section snippets
Study design
In the German Infant Nutrition Intervention plus (GINIplus) study, 5991 children born between 1995 and 1998 were recruited in 2 German cities (Munich and Wesel). Details of the study design have been described elsewhere.10, 11, 12
The parents of 2252 newborns with a positive family history of allergic disease (intervention group) agreed to participate in a randomized controlled trial to compare the effect of hydrolyzed formulas versus conventional cow's milk formula on the development of
Study population and follow-up
Fig 1 shows the flow of the study population from screening of newborns through to the 10-year follow-up. The original cohort included 5991 newborns, 2252 and 3739 of whom belonged to the intervention group and nonintervention group, respectively. A total of 4671 children participated in the 1-year assessment, and 2985 children were followed up at age 10 years. The following analyses are based on 2916 children with complete follow-up information until the age of 10 years and without missing
Main findings
Our study indicates that children with physician-diagnosed eczema within their first 2 years of life are at statistically significantly increased risk for mental health problems at age 10 years compared with children without eczema. They show more emotional difficulties and conduct problems. Even if cleared after the first 2 years of life, infant eczema appears to be independently associated with emotional symptoms, conduct problems, and possibly also hyperactivity/inattention at age 10 years.
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2018, Allergology InternationalCitation Excerpt :The associations with SDQ subcategories, including emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, and peer problems, could also be investigated. To our knowledge, only two studies have been conducted on the associations between eczema and SDQ subcategories.5,22 On the contrary, this study has some limitations.
Severe atopic dermatitis in early infancy: characteristics, challenges and new perspectives in clinical practice
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The German Infant Nutrition Intervention study was funded for 3 years by grants of the Federal Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology (grant no. 01 EE 9401-4). The 6-year follow-up of the German Infant Nutrition Intervention plus study was partly funded by the Federal Ministry of Environment (Institut für Umweltmedizinische Forschung, FKZ20462296). This study was supported in part by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität's innovative research priority project MC-Health (subproject I).
Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: S. Koletzko has received speakers' honoraria from Nestle Nutrition and Danone and has received research support from Nestle Nutrition and Mead Johnson. A. von Berg has received a speakers' honorarium from Nestle and has provided legal consultation services or expert witness testimony relevant to Airsonett. The rest of the authors have declared that they have no conflict of interest.
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These authors contributed equally to this work.