The effect of education on the knowledge of patients with celiac disease

AIM: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of education on patients’ knowledge of celiac disease, in an Iranian population. BACKGROUND: Education can increase patients’ knowledge regarding their disease, leading to improvements in their health. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted on patients who had been diagnosed with celiac disease. The patients attended an educational meeting in September, 2016. During the educational meeting information regarding the epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment of celiac disease was provided to the study subjects. Each patient completed a questionnaire regarding celiac disease before and after the educational meeting. The questionnaires were scored. Study data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. RESULTS: 90 patients were recruited (69 [77%] were women). Analysis of questionnaire responses showed that except for awareness of cross contamination with gluten, the education meeting significantly increased the knowledge of patients with celiac disease regarding epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment (p=0.001). CONCLUSION: The result of this study shows that an educational meeting can increase the knowledge of CD patients in treatment. Increasing patients’ knowledge may lead to improvements in patients’ health.