Physicians awareness of Celiac disease screening in high risk pediatric age groups in King Abdulaziz Medical City, National Guard Health Affairs, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Background: Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune disease triggered by a permanent sensitivity to gluten, causing a significant disturbance to the small intestines and multiple other organs. We aim in this study to assess physicians’ knowledge, practice and attitude towards celiac disease screening. Assessing the physicians’ knowledge will help us to understand how we can improve the practice regarding celiac disease. Methodology: A cross-sectional study using a validated questionnaire from previous studies distributed electronically among primary care and pediatric physicians. The questionnaire consisted of: 7 questions about physicians characteristics, 15 questions about knowledge, 15 questions about attitude and 5 practice questions. Respondents were asked to identify any queries they had about the questions. Time needed to fill the questionnaire was approximately 10 minutes. Results: The final sample was 264 participants with mean age of 32.31 years old where 79.9 % of the participants were aged under 40 years old. Moreover, 52.3 % of the participants were females. Considering specialty, we found that 48.5 % of the participants were family medicine physicians while 47.0 % were general pediatrics. Chronic/ intermittent diarrhea and weight loss were the most commonly known symptoms among the participants (85.1 % and 85.6 % respectively) followed by abdominal pain (78.1 %). Considering the best first line screening tool of celiac disease, 78.1 % of the participants successfully identified Anti-tissue transglutaminase antibody and 85.6 % of them were able to identify bowel biopsy as the best tool in order to confirm the diagnosis of CD, however only 20.9 % correctly identified Anti-endomysium antibody as the best tool for follow-up. Conclusion: We found that there is a deficiency in knowledge about CD among physicians with no significant difference between pediatrics and family medicine physicians. The physicians had moderate knowledge considering symptoms and risk factors of CD with good knowledge considering the diagnosis tool. More educating courses should be provided to the physicians about the diagnosis and management of CD. Key words: awareness, Celiac disease, pediatric age group, Saudi Arabia