Background: A maternal line of inheritance regarding eczema has been described in several studies, whereas\r\nothers find associations to both a maternal as well as a paternal line of inheritance. When studying family history\r\nof eczema symptoms, cohort studies including siblings are rare. Time point for assessing family eczema-history\r\ncould be of importance when studying the associations between family eczema-history and children with eczema,\r\nas parents with unaffected children may not recall mild symptoms in other siblings or their own disease history.\r\nWe therefore aimed to study the associations between reported eczema in mother, father and siblings and\r\nreported eczema in index child where information on family history was collected at two different ages of index\r\nchild.\r\nMethods: Parents/children participating in The Prevention of Allergy among Children in Trondheim (PACT) study\r\nwere given questionnaires on reported eczema symptoms in mother, father and siblings at 6 weeks and 1 year.\r\nWhen index child was 2 years of age, a detailed questionnaire on different health issues with emphasize on\r\ndifferent allergy related disorders were filled in.\r\nResults: Both maternal and paternal reports on eczema were significantly associated with eczema in index child.\r\nReporting family eczema-history at 1 year (N = 3087), ââ?¬Å?eczema sibling onlyââ?¬Â [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 3.13 (2.27-\r\n4.33)] as well as all other family-groups containing siblings with eczema were strongly associated with eczema 2\r\nyears. When family eczema-history was reported at 6 weeks (N = 2657), reporting of ââ?¬Å?eczema sibling onlyââ?¬Â was not\r\nassociated to reported eczema at 2 years in index child [aOR = 1.31 (0.77-2.23)].\r\nConclusions: Having sibling(s) with eczema strengthened the associations between maternal and paternal reports\r\non eczema with eczema in index child only when exposure was reported at 1 year. These findings indicate that\r\nresults from questionnaires-based studies of family eczema-history depend on whether or not index child has yet\r\ndeveloped eczema.
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