Background: Gestational diabetes is associated with a number of maternal and neonatal adverse outcomes. The prevalence of GDM has risen 122% in the last 20 years. There is evidence of bidirectional link between mental health problems and gestational diabetes. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of telephone follow up on pregnancy outcome and general health of mothers with gestational diabetes.
Methods: This study was a clinical trial in which 80 mothers with gestational diabetes who were referred to prenatal clinic of Imam Khomeyni Hospital in Tehran. The inclusion criteria was include Age between 18-45 years, Singleton pregnancy, Not taking medication that increase blood glucose such as corticosteroids, Having phone at home, Not having speech and hearing problems, Being able to speak Persian language and understand it, Lack of chronic diseases, No history of infertility or ART
No history of diabetes in pre pregnancy, Having at least read and write. Exclusion criteria was consist of Not respond to phone calls (more than one contact), The condition that increase blood sugar such as stress, death of relatives and take steroids and other drug, Preterm labor, Use of any diet and medication during study.
They were randomly divided into intervention and control group. Data collection tools was including phone, Exicheck, demographic form, check list of telephone follow up and GHQ questionnaire.
Data were collected at baseline (28 weeks of pregnancy) and 6 weeks after delivery.Telephone follow up was applied for the experimental group in the field of adherence of diet, insulin injections, lab tests and remembering later visit for 10 weeks. In addition, the questions of mothers about pregnancy, diabetes and general health were answered. Data analysis was done using SPSS and descriptive and analytic statistics (independent t-test, paired t-test, mann-whitaney and chi square) were used where appropriate.