Study on knowledge, attitude and self-care practices of gestational diabetes mellitus among pregnant women

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is one of the most common medical complications of pregnancy with high adverse outcomes. Knowledge and attitude of mothers in prevention and early detection and self-care behaviors in the control of diabetes will be effective. Hence the objectives of this study were to assess the knowledge, attitude and self-care behaviors about GDM among pregnant mothers.

A descriptive- analytical study was done among 200 antenatal mothers in antenatal clinic who were randomly selected and interviewed. Detailed questionnaires were used to obtain basic data. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, chi-square, Pearson and spearman correlation tests.

The results indicated that 67% of women had moderate knowledge with the mean score 5.5 ± 2.4 and 32% had positive attitude with the mean score 25.5 ± 9.6   regarding too gestational diabetes. The mean score of mother's self-care behaviors was 16.3 ± 7.6 and 62% had low self-care status. Age, education and occupation were found to be associated with knowledge and attitude with age which is statistically significant. Mothers who had higher age and higher level of education had higher knowledge and attitude towards others. Also, the self-care behavior score showed a significant statistical relationship with age and level of education. There was a positive correlation between knowledge and self-care practice and positive correlation between attitude and self-care practice (P=0.01).

due to the moderate level of knowledge, unfavorable attitudes and behaviors of self-care about gestational diabetes in order to increase women's knowledge, appropriate educational interventions are recommended and their attitudes should be evaluated. Inadequate knowledge and information about gestational diabetes in every aspect, which leads to limited knowledge and attitude and affecting their self-care behaviors. Higher knowledge and attitude will certainly lead to improve pregnancy outcomes and performance.a