Exploring psychosocial adaptation to pregnancy in women with gestational diabetes

Abstract

Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is one of the most common medical complications of pregnancy. Diagnosis of GDM, that could be unexpected, may cause women to feel negative emotions such as fear, guilt, sadness, and loss of control and experience difficulties adapting to pregnancy.

Objective: This study aimed to explore psychosocial adaptation to pregnancy in women with GDM.

Methods: This observational cross-sectional study was conducted with women with GDM and healthy pregnant women who applied to the pregnancy and perinatology outpatient clinic of a university hospital. Groups were matched according to age, education level, and gestational week. The Prenatal Self-Evaluation Questionnaire (PSEQ) was used to collect data. Simple linear regression was performed to determine factors influenced psychosocial adaptation to pregnancy using average scores from the PSEQ.

Results: Regression analysis indicated, GDM status (beta = −48.8, p ≤ 0.001) and smoking status during pregnancy (beta = 11.0, p = 0.032) influenced the total score of the PSEQ.

Conclusions: Nurses are encouraged to develop a multifaceted nursing care model that considers the physical and psychosocial problems and to provide care to increase the psychosocial adaptation of women with GDM to pregnancy.

Keywords:

• pregnancy
• gestational diabetes
• psychosocial adaptation
• nursing

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the participants who kindly volunteered to participate in the study. The authors are also grateful to the staff at the study hospital for their assistance and guidance. This study was produced from the master thesis of the first author. A part of this work has been presented at the First International and Second National Women's Health Nursing Congress as an oral presentation, March 23-24, 2018, İstanbul, Turkey.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).