Improving postpartum glucose screening after gestational diabetes mellitus: a cohort study to evaluate the...

To evaluate a mobilization campaign, the IMPACT initiative, which included multidisciplinary meetings, provision of information and a systematic prescription of an oral glucose tolerance test to improve the rate of glucose screening in women with gestational diabetes mellitus in the four largest maternity units in our area, starting in March 2011.

We retrospectively compared the level of self-reported screening during the first 6 months postpartum of women who gave birth after having been diagnosed with gestational diabetes before (January 2009 to December 2010) and after the IMPACT campaign (April 2011 to February 2012).

We included 961 women (589 in the period before and 372 in the period after the campaign was initiated) with a mean ± SD age of 33.2 ± 5.3 years and BMI of 27.8 ± 5.3 kg/m². Multivariate analysis, stratified using a propensity score in order to limit bias caused by imbalance between both periods, showed that the postpartum screening rate was higher after the campaign began (48.9 vs 33.3%, odds ratio 1.7, 95% CI 1.1-2.5; P = 0.019) and higher in women who received insulin treatment during pregnancy (odds ratio 2.3, 95% CI 1.5-3.6; P < 0.001), consumed fruit and vegetables daily (odds ratio 1.6, 95% CI 1.1-2.4; P = 0.035) and did not smoke (smoking vs non-smoking: odds ratio 0.3, 95% CI 0.1-0.7; P = 0.01). There was no interaction between the campaign effect and these particular conditions. The proportion of oral glucose tolerance tests performed in women who underwent screening increased from 6.3 to 33.0%.

The IMPACT campaign increased postpartum screening, and the use the oral glucose tolerance test in particular. The effect of this initiative might be reinforced in women who are non-daily consumers of fruit and vegetables, smokers and those who do not receive insulin treatment during pregnancy.