Quality of life of Moroccan children with celiac disease: Arabic translation and validation of a specific celiac disease instrument

Purpose: Gluten-free diet (GFD) is a lonely lifelong management for patients with celiac disease (CD), which may affect their quality of life (QoL). This can be evaluated by generic or specific instruments. We aimed to translate, validate and cross-culturally adapt a specific-CD instrument to Moroccan-Arabic version (M-CD-DUX), and then apply it to evaluate the QoL of Moroccan celiac children.

Design and methods: CD-DUX instrument was translated and culturally adapted, and preliminarily evaluated on 15 children and their proxies. The reproducibility and internal consistency of M-CD-DUX were measured by intra-class coefficient (ICC) and Cronbach α tests respectively. The statistical analysis of data consisted was conducted using SPSS, and the Goodness-of-Fit test was measured by SPSS AMOS.

Results: The reliability of M-CD-DUX instrument showed a good internal consistency and reproducibility. The psychometric properties of M-CD-DUX were acceptable, and the instrument's Model fit was good [(Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = 0.062; χ2 = 603.08, p < 0.001]. M-CD-DUX was completed by 52 celiac children and their proxies. It showed a worse QoL for all items and subscales, and no difference was observed between the QoL of celiac children already under GFD and those recently diagnosed.

Conclusion: M-CD-DUX was the first reliable and adapted instrument used to evaluate the QoL of celiac children in an Arab country, emphasizing a negative impact of CD on their QoL.

Practice implications: Therefore, improving their QoL requires to make gluten-free products available to them at an appropriate price as well as a good integration into society.