JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a significant medical complication of pregnancy that requires close monitoring by a multidisciplinary healthcare team. The growing sophistication of mHealth (mobile health) technology could play a significant supporting role for women with GDM and healthcare professionals regarding GDM management.

Objective:

This study included two phases. The aim of Phase 1 was to explore the perceptions of health professionals (HPs) and women with GDM regarding the use of mHealth for GDM self-management and identifying their needs from these technologies. The aim of Phase 2 was to explore the perception of women with GDM about their experiences with a state-of-the-art app for managing GDM. In combining results from both phases, the overall aim was to establish how perceptions of GDM self-management technology have changed due to pandemic restrictions and experience of using such technology.

Methods:

26 semi-structured interviews were conducted in two phases. In Phase 1, 16 participants including 7 HPs, 8 women with GDM and 1 postpartum woman with GDM history participated in the interviews. In Phase 2, 10 women with GDM took part in the interviews. NVivo (QSR International) was used to extract qualitative data, which were subjected to thematic analysis.

Results:

Phase 1 identified three themes from interviews with women with GDM: “Fitting with women's lifestyle constraints”, “Technology's design not meeting women’s needs”, and “Optimizing technology's design to meet women's needs”. Three themes from interviews with HPs were also derived: “Optimizing technology design to improve quality of care”, “Technology to support women’s independence”, and “Limitations in care system and facilities”. Analysis of Phase 2 interviews identified two further themes: “Enhancing information and functionalities”, and “Optimizing interface design”. In both phases, participants emphasized a simple and user-friendly interface design to be the predominant factor that would influence their use of technology for GDM management.

Conclusions:

The combined findings underlined similar points. Poor usability, data visualization limitations, lack of personalization, limited information, and lack of communication facilities, were the prime issues of current GDM self-management mHealth technology that need to be addressed. The analysis also revealed how women with GDM should play a vital role in gathering requirements for GDM self-management technology. A few needs were identified from in-depth discussion with women with GDM that would be missed without their involvement.