Enhancing gestational diabetes management in Filipino patients: Evaluating the impact of education on knowledge, attitude, and pregnancy outcomes at a Tertiary Medical Center

ABSTRACT

Introduction@#Patient education is integral in the management of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), a common pregnancy complication that may cause adverse perinatal outcomes. This study evaluated the effect of diabetes education on the knowledge and attitude among patients with GDM, comparing pre- vs post-diabetes session scores and determining pregnancy outcomes.@*Methodology@#A one-group pre-test and post-test experimental design study was conducted on 75 patients after one- session diabetes counseling using the Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Knowledge Questionnaire (GDMKQ) and the third version of the Diabetes Attitude Scale (DAS-3).@*Results@#Of the 75 subjects, 84% exhibited adequate knowledge of diabetes. Post-education, a significant increase in the total scores was seen among those less than 35 years of age (p-value 0.003), both employed and unemployed (p-value 0.0.026, 0.047, respectively), with a secondary level of education (p-value 0.014) and multigravid (p-value 0.015). An overall median positive attitude score of 3.6 was documented. For neonatal outcomes, no adverse events existed. For maternal outcomes, 17.9% had elevated fasting blood glucose while 7.1% had elevated 2-hour post-glucose tolerance test.@*Conclusion@#Diabetes education improves patient’s knowledge but not their attitude. Hence, improvement in attitude interventions should be incorporated into the current diabetes education program.