A174 Assessment of Distributed Education on Gluten-Free Diet to Families of Children With Newly Diagnosed Celiac Disease

Abstract

Background: Treatment of celiac disease (CD) is a strict life-long gluten-free diet (GFD). The GFD is complex and counselling by an expert dietitian is essential. Number of new CD diagnoses is increasing, leading to significant impact on dietitian resources. Distributed education is a means of providing GFD teaching to groups of families off site instead of one-toone sessions. Aims: To assess the feasibility and effectiveness of GFD education using distributed teaching. Methods: The IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia is the only tertiary care paediatric institution in the three Maritime Provinces of Canada. It has two paediatric dietitians with expertise in GFD who provide teaching to families of children with newly diagnosed CD. Families often have to travel long distances to come to the institution, sometimes in excess of 4 hours driving. Patients outside Halifax area were offered to participate in teaching sessions via live videoconference link at their regional hospitals free of charge. All family members of the patient were encouraged to attend. Sessions were held once a month at noon and were 2-2.5 hours in duration. They were interactive, with a gastroenterologist giving a brief overview of CD, a social worker or psychologist providing information on finances/coping and dietitian providing details of GFD. All families who attended the sessions were surveyed by mail with a 10-item questionnaire to assess Content/Delivery and Usefulness of Information received on a five-point Likert scale. Results: From January to June 2017, a total of 39 families attended the GFD teaching sessions. Of these, 21 (54%) were in Halifax (local) and 18 (46%) at distributed sites including 8 at various places in Nova Scotia, 6 in New Brunswick and 4 in Prince Edward Island. Number of families at each session ranged from 3-9 with all sessions having participants from both local and distributed sites. All sessions were completed successfully. Feedback survey was completed by 26 (67%) families, 12 local and 14 from distributed sites. All participants at both sites Strongly Agreed/Agreed that the physical setting (e.g. sound, visuals) was good for learning and information provided was easy to understand. At the distributed sites 86% and at local site 92% of participants Strongly Agreed/Agreed that the learning environment was interactive. There were no significant differences in responses between the two groups to other questions asked. Three participants wished there was more time, while two felt that session was too long. Conclusions: Distributed education on gluten-free diet using videoconferencing is feasible and effective. It affords convenience for families and savings on dietitian resources. Challenges include organization of teaching sessions for multiple sites and determining their appropriate duration.