Quality of life of families with celiac disease children in Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Objectives: The prevalence of Celiac Disease (CD) is increasing worldwide, and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia reports the highest seroprevalence rate. A strict Gluten-Free Diet (GFD) for lifetime is the only therapy to CD patients. It has been demonstrated that childhood CD negatively affects the health of parents. On the other hand, the emotional and social wellbeing of the parents has a great impact on the Quality Of Life (QOL) of CD children. However, limited literatures are available on the QOL of parents of CD children. This study aims to evaluate the QOL of families of celiac disease children on GFD treatment and identify modifiable risk factors for poor QOL. Methods: A total of 73 children with celiac disease living in different cities of the eastern province of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia were included in this descriptive, cross-sectional study. A modified version of the celiac disease-specific instrument measuring the QOL was used. Data analyses were done using descriptive statistics, correlation coefficient test and the Fisher’s exact test. Results: The mean QOL score was found to be 65.8 and the median was 64.0. Very few (5.48%) parents perceived their QOL to be good, while majority of them (78.08%) considered it as moderate; and the remaining parents (16.44%) regarded it as poor. Conclusions: We found that small-sized families, with young and educated mothers have a better QOL than others. Most of the emotional and psychosocial elements of QOL were related to the difficulties in availability of GFD in daily life.