Factors Associated with Maladaptive Eating Behaviors, Social Anxiety, and Quality of Life in Adults with Celiac Disease

Dietary adherence is not dependent on the mode of diagnosis in children with coeliac disease

AIM

To compare the adherence to gluten-free diet between children with serology-based and biopsy-proven coeliac disease.

METHODS

Medical records were retrospectively reviewed in 257 Swedish children diagnosed with coeliac disease between 2012 and 2019 at a tertiary hospital. Adherence to a gluten-free diet was systematically assessed by trained dietitians at follow-up. Mixed models were used to analyse the dietary adherence by mode of diagnosis (serology-based vs. biopsy-proven).

RESULTS

After mean 6.3 (SD 2.4) years, there was neither a difference in the dietary adherence over time depending on the mode of diagnosis (OR 0.64 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.26, 1.60], p = 0.342), nor if coeliac disease was detected in screening studies (OR 0.74 [95% CI 0.25, 2.17], p = 0.584) or in risk-groups (OR 1.01 [95% CI 0.26, 3.91], p = 0.991) compared to clinically detected diagnosis. Non-adherence to a gluten-free diet increased with age (OR 1.19 [95% CI 1.06, 1.33], p = 0.003). There was no difference in the proportion of patients improving their dietary adherence from non-adherent to adherent over time (p = 0.322).

CONCLUSION

Mode of diagnosis did not influence the dietary adherence in Swedish children with coeliac disease, although adherence to a gluten-free diet was inversely associated with increasing age.

Uncovering the Concerns and Needs of Individuals with Celiac Disease: A Cross-Sectional Study

The treatment for celiac disease (CD) involves a strict gluten-free diet, which can be challenging and lead to questions for patients. Pinpointing these uncertainties can enable the creation of efficient educational resources. In this study, a questionnaire was specifically designed to gain insights into the knowledge, concerns, and needs of individuals with CD and their supporters. The questionnaire was distributed through the Instagram social network and received adequate responses from 300 participants, 258 (86%) being female and 152 (50.7%) falling in the age range of 25-44 years. The concerns of individuals with celiac disease and celiac supporters were rated on a 1-4 scale, with a mean score of 3.5 indicating significant concern. A total of 255 (85%) of all participants expressed that their principal concern was the social limitations they faced, such as difficulties in eating out and sharing food with others. Every participant evaluated their overall disease knowledge, averaging at 2.92 out of 4, indicating a reasonable level of awareness. When asked if they believed that improving general knowledge about CD in the general population would enhance their quality of life, the vast majority responded affirmatively. This finding underscores the importance of not only educating individuals with CD but also reaching out to the wider population, especially those who have a direct impact on the daily lives of individuals with CD, such as family members, friends, and food service providers.

Maladaptive Food Attitudes and Behaviors in Individuals with Celiac Disease and Their Association with Quality of Life

BACKGROUND

The only treatment for celiac disease (CeD) is strict lifelong adherence to a gluten-free diet (GFD). In some individuals the demands of a GFD may contribute to maladaptive eating attitudes and behaviors that impair quality of life (QOL). The Celiac Disease Food Attitudes and Behaviors (CD-FAB) is an easily administered and scored 11-item tool querying potentially maladaptive food attitudes and behaviors resulting from beliefs around gluten exposures and food safety.

OBJECTIVES

To assess the usefulness of the CD-FAB in establishing the presence of maladaptive food attitudes and behaviors among adults with CeD and to explore the relationship between these attitudes and behaviors and other factors including QOL, anxiety, depression, CeD symptoms and personality traits.

METHODS

The study is a cross-sectional pilot of 50 adults (mean age 29.6 years) with biopsy-proven CeD who followed a GFD for at least one year and had no self-reported eating disorder diagnosis. High scores on the CD-FAB tool suggest higher disordered eating attitudes and beliefs.

RESULTS

Compared to lower scores (mean 20.2), higher (worse) CD-FAB scores (mean 54.5) were positively associated with recency of diagnosis, number of CeD-related gastrointestinal symptoms, and the personality trait of neuroticism. Higher CD-FAB scores were statistically and clinically significantly associated with diminished QOL (p < 0.001). The relationship with anxiety and depression was less clear but trended in the expected direction.

CONCLUSION

The CD-FAB may be a useful tool for dietitians who wish to monitor maladaptive food attitudes and behaviors among their CeD patients, especially in the first-year post-diagnosis.

Review article: Dietary management of coeliac disease

As the gluten-free diet is currently the only treatment for coeliac disease and one that needs to applied in the long term, this review aims to explore the various issues confronting an individual and discuss the importance of ongoing dietary management. The process of dietary counselling has shifted from one that focuses on just foods to avoid to one that evaluates the multiple life factors (social, cultural, environmental, biological) that affect the individual's food choices and dietary behaviour. The nutritional quality of a gluten-free diet continues to affect vitamin, mineral and weight status of individuals with coeliac disease. There are many barriers to dietary adherence including increased cost and limited availability of gluten-free products, as well as the negative impact on an individual's social domain of quality of life. Therefore, assessment, education and counselling by a coeliac specialist dietitian should be the cornerstone of dietary management.

Quality of Life in Teenagers and Adults With Coeliac Disease: From Newly Spanish Coeliac Disease Questionnaire Validation to Assessment in a Population-Based Study

Background

Coeliac disease (CD) is an immune-mediated systemic disorder elicited by the ingestion of gluten in genetically predisposed individuals. Gluten restriction in CD sufferers leads to numerous limitations in various aspects of daily life and can significantly impact the quality-of-life (QoL). The specific and widely used Coeliac Disease Questionnaire (CDQ) is an excellent tool to evaluate QoL in patients with CD, assessing physical, psychological, and social domains. This questionnaire is unavailable in Spain. Therefore, our study is the first to translate, culturally adapt, validate, and apply the Spanish version of CDQ to a representative sample of Spanish teenagers and adults with CD.

Methods

A total of 153 CD participants with biopsy-proven and self-reported gluten-free adherence were included in the cross-sectional study, which included four stages: (1) translation and retranslation of the French CDQ version into Spanish; (2) cultural adaptation and semantic evaluation; (3) CDQ validation through the internal consistency determination and reproducibility of the QoL; and (4) application of the questionnaire to Spanish teenagers and adults with CD and estimation of QoL using EQ-5D.

Results

The internal consistency and test–retest reliability of the Spanish CDQ were satisfactory and no ceiling or floor effects were detected. Significant correlations were identified between the CDQ scales, and the instrument for validation covering similar dimensions of the QoL was identified. The mean CDQ total score was 131.03 ± 24.1, and the social domain had the highest rating. There was no correlation between the time spent on a gluten-free diet and QoL. A significantly higher QoL score was reported among males and adolescents in the 15–17 age groups.

Conclusion

The newly Spanish CDQ is an appropriate tool to assess the QoL of the teenager and adult patients with CD. This study highlights the importance of identifying the affected scales to address actions to reduce the impact of the gluten-free diet burden of the coeliac patients and maintain public health regulations that support patients with chronic diseases such as CD.