Development and initial testing of a GDM information website for multi-ethnic women with GDM

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) affects approximately 5-15 % of pregnant women in Australia. Highest rates are seen among women who are obese, from specific ethnic backgrounds and low socio-economic circumstance. These features also impact on uptake of self-management recommendations. GDM that is not well managed can give rise to serious pregnancy complications. The aim of this project was to develop and test an intervention to improve knowledge of GDM and GDM self-management principles.

A web-based intervention, consisting of resources aimed at a low level of literacy, was developed and tested among multi-ethnic women at a metropolitan hospital in Melbourne Australia. A basic one-group pre-test/post-test design was used to explore the impact of the intervention on knowledge, in 3 domains: (1) Knowledge of GDM; (2) food values, and;(3) GDM self-management principles. Questionnaire data was analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), version 21.0. Fisher's exact test was used to test for an improvement in each knowledge scale.

Twenty-one women with GDM, from multi-ethnic backgrounds, participated in the testing of the intervention. Results indicated that the intervention was effective at improving knowledge scores and this effect was greatest in the first domain, knowledge of GDM. Although some improvement of knowledge scores occurred in the other two domains, food values and self-management principles, these improvements were less than expected. This finding may relate to a number of misunderstandings in the interpretation of the web resource and survey questions. These issues will need to be resolved prior to proceeding to a clinical trial.

Initial results from this study look promising and suggest that with some improvements, the intervention could prove a useful adjunct support for women with GDM from multi-ethnic and low socio-economic backgrounds. Conducting a randomised controlled trial is feasible in the future and will provide a useful means of examining efficacy of the intervention.