P960 - COELIAC DISEASE GROUP EDUCATION: CONFIDENCE LEVELS WITH THE GLUTEN FREE DIET

P960

COELIAC DISEASE GROUP EDUCATION: CONFIDENCE LEVELS WITH THE GLUTEN FREE DIET

M. Keenan^1,*, N. Redford ¹, S. Gill¹

¹Tallaght University Hospital, Dublin, Ireland

Rationale: To assess the effectiveness of the group education sessions for providing Coeliac Disease (CD) education by measuring patient’s confidence levels. 

Methods: 5 coeliac group education sessions were held in Tallaght University Hospital during 2023-2024. 19 patients attended the sessions and provided feedback. Pre and post questionnaires were used to measure the patients’ knowledge on CD and the Gluten free (GF) diet before and after the session. Patients' confidence was assessed using the following question; “How confident do you feel in your knowledge of the GF diet?”. Data was collected using a 5 point Likert scale.  Further information was collected such as: where the patients received their prior information on the GF diet from.

Results: Post group education there was an increase in patients reporting confidence in their knowledge of the diet from 4 (21%) to 17 (89.5%) and a decrease in patients who were not confident from 5 (26.3%) to 0. No patients reported a decrease in confidence score and 16 patients (84.2%) reported an increase, as seen in Figure 1. This was found to be statistically significant (p=0.003). Results also show that 58% of patients received advice on the GF diet from a Doctor, 5% received advice from a dietitian and 37% of patients did not receive advice from any healthcare professional as seen in Figure 2. 

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Conclusion: It is clear from carrying out this audit on patient’s knowledge pre and post the group education session, there may be patients who are being lost to follow up in the community and are not receiving the appropriate advice required. The increase in confidence levels shows that this is a useful method to provide the information in a timely fashion. Automatic referral to the dietitian to avail of the group session is recommended on diagnosis or if there are any concerns with GF diet compliance.

Disclosure of Interest: None declared