[Empowerment and Quality of Life in Adults with Celiac Disease. A Cross-Sectional Study]

Introduction. Celiac disease is a chronic disease with worldwide distribution. In the person-centered health approach to chronic diseases, the concepts of empowerment and quality of life become relevant. Aim. To determine the degree of empowerment and quality of life of adults with celiac disease in a sample from El Salvador, as well as the correlation between both measures. Materials and methods. Descriptive cross-sectional study. Salvadoran adults with diagnosis of celiac disease confirmed by duodenal biopsy were surveyed online. Sociodemographic and clinical data were required from the participants. A validated questionnaire in Spanish for the empowerment of people with chronic diseases was applied because there is no specific empowerment questionnaire for people with celiac disease. A validated quality of life questionnaire in Spanish for people with celiac disease was also used. Results. Thirty-six people were included in the study, of whom 86.1% were females, with a median time since diagnosis of 7.0 years [5.0-10.0]. Seventy-five percent reported a strict adherence to the gluten-free diet. The median empowerment score was 185.0 [176.25-195.0] out of 235 points and the median quality of life score was 72.5 [54.0-79.75] out of 100 points. The Spearman correlation between empowerment and quality of life was positive and statistically significant (rho = 0.444; p = 0.007). The people evaluated in this study have a good level of empowerment and quality of life. Conclusion. There is a moderate positive correlation between empowerment and quality of life for adults with celiac disease in this study.