“The first three entries …”: Information seeking habits in women with gestational diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Background: Women diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) have an elevated risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D) later on. Knowledge concerning the awareness of the risk of diabetes, level of knowledge and information seeking habits is fundamental to develop tailored T2D prevention strategies for this high-risk group of women. Objective: What strategies do women with GDM use to find information on health-related issues and what is their level of knowledge and risk awareness related to T2D? Methods: Overall, 6 focus groups and 8 individual interviews with a total of 33 women diagnosed with GDM were conducted and evaluated using a qualitative content analysis. Results: The treating doctors were the most reliable source of information for the participants. All women also used the Internet to find out about health-related topics, although they only rated the content of the websites as partially trustworthy. They entered individual terms in the search engine and often only considered the first entries. The participants generally did not use systematic search strategies or targeted searches for institutional quality-assured websites. The women with GDM showed considerable knowledge deficits about T2D. A realistic perception of the risk was only partially present and hardly motivated them to change their lifestyle. Conclusion: The women interviewed had little knowledge of T2D and their individual risk of developing it. Their ability to systematically search for health information on the Internet was very limited. In order to strengthen their motivation to prevent T2D, risk awareness and strategies for systematic searching for information should be promoted by suitable target group-specific measures.