Cent Eur J Nurs Midw 2010, 1(4):139-144

Living with celiac disease

Andrea Menšíková^1,*, Natália Beharková²

¹ First Private Clinic Laurea, Brno

² Department of Nursing, Medical Faculty, Masaryk University, Brno

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease with highly polymorphic image of clinical course, which still belongs among neglected diagnosis, on which, often during the atypical course of the disease is not thought of. By estimate of 40-50 thousand of the Czech population suffer from the disease, but only 10% of them know about their illness.

Aim: The aim of the study was to point out what socio-economic impact has disease with celiac on the patient and to find out what is the compliance of patients with celiac disease.

Methods: A quantitative survey was used. Data were collected using questionnaire with 22 questions from 139 respondents in October 2008.

Results: Celiac affects patients the most in leisure activities (24,1%) in the economic field (23,7%) and in personal life (21,5%) in the social field (15,2%) and business sector (13, 9%). Most of the respondents has no possibility of gluten free diet in the workplace, deliberate violation of occasional dieting was reported by 9 persons. More then half of interviewees considered the information from health care employees immediately after diagnosis as insufficient.

Conclusion: Celiac disease is a serious socio-economic problem due to the high cost of gluten free foods and their low availability, particularly away from home. It is advisable to create high quality educational materials, both for the sick and the ones who are caring for individuals or groups (family, patient, team of cooks for school and work sites, etc.) that could make life easier for patients with celiac disease.

Keywords: gluten free diet, celiac disease, socio-economic impact, compliance of patients

Published: September 30, 2010  Show citation