Abstract
Background: Celiac disease can have a huge negative impact on the quality of patients' life. Various clinical pictures can be presented ranging from asymptomatic patients to multiple organs symptoms mainly GI symptoms. Malabsorption, weight loss, chronic diarrhea, and steatorrhea are considered as the typical manifestations of CD. Hence, it's a major cause of mortality, morbidity, and a notable health burden. CD affects about 1% of total world population. Aims: to assess health-related quality of life in patients with celiac disease. Methods: Cross-sectional study using self-administrated Short-Form survey (SF-36) questionnaire that has been completed by CD patients in Saudi Arabia chi(2) tests were used for categorical variables and the Mann-Whitney U test for continuous variables; P<0.05 considered statistically significant. Results: A total of 264 subjects, 72.7% of them were females while 27.3% were males. 23.9% were between 5 - 14 years, 26.1% were between 15 - 24 years, 48.9% were between 25-64 and 1.1% >= 64 years. SF-36 has 8 subscales: physical functioning, Role functioning/physical, Role functioning/emotional, energy/fatigue, emotional well-being, social functioning, pain, and general health. Emotional well-being had the lowest mean (mean=57.8, 20.3 SD) compared to baseline (mean=70.38, 21.9 SD) then social functioning mean=67.95 (baseline=78.77), 23.16 SD (baseline=25.4SD) followed by Role functioning/emotional mean=55.8 (baseline=65.78), 43 SD (baseline=40.7SD). However, females scored significantly lower than males in Role functioning/physical (females: 51.56, males: 70.14) and Role functioning/emotional (Females: 50.52, males: 69.91). Patients >= 64 years scored lowest in Role functioning/emotional (33.33, 57.74 SD) especially in role functioning/physical. (59.13-44.64) and role functioning/emotional (58.3-45.24). Conclusion: HRQOL in celiac patients scored low in all subscales. However, Emotional well-being, social functioning and Role functioning/emotional were the most significant. Females scored lower than males in all subscales except in general health. Furthermore, Adherence to GFD has a major role in improving HRQOL.