Sources of information on Gestational Diabetes Mellitus, satisfaction with diagnostic process and information provision

Questionnaires were completed by 116 pregnant women aged 18–45 years, diagnosed with GDM and recruited from maternity diabetes clinic. Eligible women were invited to participate in the study and informed consent was obtained from each participant prior to enrolment. Descriptive statistics, Kruskal-Wallis test, t-test and chi-square test were used to analyse data.

Most women (64.2 %) expected general practitioners (GPs) to be the best source of GDM information, following by diabetes educator nurses (45.9 %), diabetes support groups (33.9 %) and internet (32.1 %). However, women found that diabetes educator nurses were more helpful than GPs (32.6 and 20.2 %, respectively). Participants’ age and country of birth were statistically significant. For women aged over 30 years and women born overseas the internet was the most useful information source (68.9 and 77.1 % respectively). Overall, women were very satisfied (33.0 %) or satisfied (45.0 %) with how they were informed of the GDM diagnosis, although 26.0 % were informed by telephone and 16.0 % by text message. More than one-third (39.0 %) of women were not referred to sources of information by GPs at time of diagnosis of GDM (p <0.0001). Women who were referred reported that they were very satisfied (40.0 %) or satisfied (44.0 %) with information they received. Only 8.0 % of women reported dissatisfaction with the manner of health professionals.