Clinical Study Quality of Life, Wishes, and Needs in Women with Gestational Diabetes: Italian DAWN Pregnancy Study

Copyright © 2012 A. Lapolla et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The DAWN (Diabetes Attitudes, Wishes and Needs) study is a survey promoted by the International Diabetes Federation to recognize the perceptions and attitudes of people suffering from diabetes mellitus. In this context, we evaluated the quality of life of Italian and immigrant women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Information was gathered using a structured questionnaire for patients ’ self-compilation. In a 3-month period, a 51-item questionnaire was submitted to 198 Italians and 88 immigrants (from 27 different foreign nationalities). Italian women were older and had higher education than the immigrants. 60 % of the Italians and 38 % of the immigrants had a family history of diabetes mellitus. In both groups, the diagnosis of GDM caused anxiety; one-third of women feared their child could contract diabetes at delivery and/or have congenital malformations