Gestational diabetes Mellitus (GDM) is rapidly becoming a normal condition of pregnancy in some demographic regions. Currently 16.6% of the pregnant women attending the Mercy Hospital for Women (MHW) in Heidelberg have a diagnosis of GDM. This diagnosis can promote feelings of anxiety surrounding GDM, its management and the implications for the baby. Education and information for a woman newly diagnosed with GDM should be timely, cater for all levels of health literacy and meet the capacity of the service provider. On 1 January 2015 the MHW adopted the revised diagnostic criteria for GDM in line with RANZCOG recommendations. This led to increased numbers of women diagnosed with GDM necessitating a change in the process for notifying women from a personalised phone call to a letter.
MHW wanted to evaluate whether the needs and expectations of the women who were diagnosed with GDM were being met.
50 women were surveyed at their next hospital appointment following the GDM group class. Questionnaires explored women’s satisfaction with the service offered by MHW.
One third of the women who received a letter in the mail stated they were unhappy with the method of notification, some of them expressing their distress with not knowing what to do and feeling they did not receive enough information. The level of anxiety was also evident with 82% of women indicating anxiety/worry about having GDM.
Unsurprisingly women sought knowledge to reduce their anxiety with all 50 women seeking advice from another source of which 76% looked to the internet for answers. Women accessing the internet is concerning, hence MHW is considering updating and directing the women to the Mercy site hence providing evidenced based information. Levels of anxiety surrounding diagnosis may also be explored comparing those who receive a phone call to those who receive a letter.