Design of a gestational diabetes mellitus self-management system
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Towards the inclusion of women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and healthcare professionals in the design of self-management healthcare technologies.
IRAS ID
240156
Contact name
Daniel Rough
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Dundee
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 5 months, 30 days
Research summary
Currently, the health care approach for self-management of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in Scotland is mainly based on a written document as a logbook. This is prone to result in lost records, forgetting to record readings and a lack of sharing data with healthcare professionals in real-time.
GDM is associated with serious maternal and foetal complications such as foetal congenital malformation, macrosomia (significantly larger than average) and birth injury or trauma. After delivery, women with GDM are at the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. The care and treatment of these problems are expensive for the NHS. The adverse effects of GDM can be minimised with good control over maternal blood glucose, diet, and physical activity during pregnancy. Technology may be a solution, but previous attempts to create a digital GDM self-management system have not included women with GDM in the design process. This may be one of the reasons why these systems have not been used widely and their high abandonment rate. Technology can reduce the number of face-to-face clinical visits, which are inconvenient and expensive for women with GDM and expensive for the NHS.This study aims to include women with GDM, postpartum women who have had GDM and healthcare professionals in each stage of the design process, using inclusion techniques that we will develop within the research. This will have implications for patients and the NHS regarding costs, the effectiveness of the treatments and communication between patient and clinician.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic circumstances and in line with government recommendations for COVID-19, face-to-face research activities will be replaced with remote ones. The physical face-to-face design has been adapted to be conducted remotely (online) for this study over a 24- 36 month period.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 3
REC reference
19/WS/0134
Date of REC Opinion
11 Sep 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion