Postnatal follow-up screening is recommended for all women diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). However follow-up rates are poor and highly variable in Australia and internationally. The reasons that mothers are not completing recommended postnatal screening after GDM diagnosis are not well understood or studied. The quality of communication may be an important influence on the completion of postnatal GDM follow-up.
To explore and assess women's communication experiences of postnatal GDM follow-up.
Theoretical, purposeful sampling was used to identify women diagnosed with GDM. Convergent interviews explored participants' communication experiences with GDM and postnatal follow-up. Transcripts were provided to and updated by participants. Data was analysed with Leximancer(®) (V4, 2011) automated content analysis software.
This research was conducted at a major tertiary referral hospital in Queensland, Australia, between December 2012 and July 2013. Women participating in maternity shared care and diagnosed with GDM were interviewed (n=13).
Five themes, all concerned with obtaining information, were identified: diagnosis of GDM; seeking GDM information; accessing specialist services; need for postnatal GDM follow-up; and completing GDM follow-up. Results were interpreted using Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) to explore whether and how the information needs of women were accommodated. Women's interpretations of communication events influenced their knowledge, perceptions and motivation to complete recommended postnatal follow-up.
Accommodation of the communication and information needs of women with GDM may be an effective strategy for clinicians to encourage completion of recommended postnatal GDM follow-up.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 September 2019.
All research outputs
#7,582,403
of 34,364,397 outputs
Outputs from Women & Birth
#573
of 1,452 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#72,015
of 298,653 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Women & Birth
#10
of 17 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,364,397 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 73rd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,452 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.5. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 59% of its peers.
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