COVID-19 pandemic perception in adults with celiac disease: an impulse to implement the use of telemedicine

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) causes severe complications and deaths all over the world. COVID-19 also has indirect effects from the lockdown and the possible lack of food. We aimed to evaluate the perception of this in Celiac Disease (CeD) patients who require a lifelong gluten-free diet as a therapy. METHODS: We invited by e-mail CeD adult patients from the University of Salerno (Campania, South Italy) and the University of Padua (Veneto, North Italy) to answer an ad hoc COVID-19 survey. RESULTS: We sent the web survey to 651 email addresses and we received 276 answers (42,4%). CeD patients did not feel more vulnerable because they had CeD (not at all 56.6%) and they did not worry much about the possible shortness of gluten-free food during the epidemic (not at all 48.5%). The most worried were the elderly patients, patients with other comorbidities and females. Finally, CeD patients were happy with remote consultations and explicitly asked to have them. DISCUSSION: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted a proportion of patients with CeD; in particular, women, elderly patients, patients with other comorbidities. COVID-19, although a challenging experience from the medical and the psychological point of view, has offered an opportunity to practice, on a large-scale, a remote consultation approach for CeD healthcare.