RELIABILITY OF STATEMENTS AND EXPERIENCES OF CELIAC PATIENTS ON GLUTEN-FREE PRODUCTS/QUANTITATIVE STUDY

Celiac disease is a chronic gastroenterological disease, and a lifelong gluten-free diet is a needed andnecessary therapy, which implies the exclusion of products containing gluten from the diet. The declaration ofgluten-free products is often unclear and ambiguous. The purpose of this paper was to examine celiac diseasepatients' attitudes and experiences with gluten-free diet declarations. 95 respondents from the area of HNŽ with adiagnosis of celiac disease were included in this quantitative research. The anonymous survey was conducted usingthe Google Forms tool. An anonymous survey examined sociodemographic data (age, gender, education, duration ofillness), experiences and attitudes with declarations about gluten-free diet. In this research, more than half of therespondents are extremely careful about what they consume, without exception. Participants who have beendiagnosed with celiac disease for a longer period of time completely disagree to a greater extent that they do notknow what products they can consume. Individuals with gluten sensitivity may rely more on the 'gluten-free' claimfor information about the gluten content of a product. Individuals with celiac disease, on the other hand, may bemore experienced readers of food labels and may rely more on the ingredient list. Consumer expectations havedriven the food industry to continuously adapt and improve the formulations and processing techniques used in theproduction of gluten-free products.