Improving celiac disease management in the Danube region by raising the awareness, improving the knowledge, and developing better skills

CD SKILLS project is addressing existing challenges of healthcare sector in Celiac disease (CD) management in the Danube region. CD is a lifelongsystemic reaction against gluten found in wheat, barley and rye. It can occur at any age, but usually starts in early childhood. Women are affected twice as common as men. Without a very strict exclusion diet, severe complications can develop. More than 1% of population (about 1.2 million) in the Danube region could have CD, with much larger population affected indirectly. It has an impact on families and friends, as well as on childcare institutions, food producers, catering service and especially on healthcare sector. About 80% of patients are diagnosed with long delay or remain undiagnosed, increasing a risk of complications, resulting in high morbidity and mortality, low school performance and high work absenteeism. This has important negative impact on sustainability of healthcare sector and society. Possible reasons are low awareness and knowledge about the disease, limited access to diagnostic tools, limited opportunities for innovative learning and inefficient information exchange. CD SKILLS aims to overcome these shortcomings to ensure sustainable public healthcare sector, which will efficiently meet health related and social needs of patients and general public affected by CD. Assessment of regional gaps in CD management will be followed by introduction of innovative learning strategy combining traditional lectures and modern e-tools, development of efficient disease detection strategies, and by innovative pilot services. Multisector transnational network will enable knowledge exchange.

Project activities will raise the awareness, improve knowledge, skills and competences of all stakeholders involved in CD management, effectively improving the capacity of healthcare and social service in the Danube region. Project capitalizes on projects CE Focus IN CD and SI-HU LQ- CELIAC.