Raising awareness about celiac disease is directly related to the quality of life of
celiacs. Celiac and celiac caregivers are routinely misunderstood for adopting strict
glutenfree diets. This lack of empathy is directly related to emotional problems,
social exclusion and depression. This work aimed to develop a comic book with a
celiac theme to sensitize children and adults, generating a more empathic attitude
towards the celiac condition. This work was approved by the Ethics Committee of the
Federal University of Pará (n° 899,717). For the construction of the script, an online
questionnaire was created to collect stories experienced by celiacs that they deemed
important to be contacted in the comic book format. The answers were transcribed to
Excel to select the themes that would be considered in the script, after the script was
built, it was sent to a cartoonist. A fictional character was created (Lina) to package
the plot of the comic book. A total of 39 depositions were collected, with themes
ranging from diagnostic situations to social life. The comic was organized into 7
episodes (Lina and her discovery; visit to the nutritionist; changes; birthday party; go
to the supermarket; I want to stay home; Mom's graduation), which narrated the
difficult diagnosis, the steps to confirm the disease , the details when buying food in
supermarkets and restaurants, the frustrations and difficulties and some routine
situations in birthday parties. The final structure of the comic book consisted of 80
figures and 20 pages, paper size a3. We can conclude that sharing real stories is an
interesting way to disseminate information and since they are real, the impact on
empathy ends up being more positive. The comic book's narrative provides the
reader with an approach to celiac reality, showing that such common and simple
currently situations can be a torment in the life of celiac patients and their family unit
and that we can help them in this disease management with positive and empathetic
attitudes.
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