This study aimed to investigate maternal preferences for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) screening options in rural China to identify an optimal GDM screening strategy.
Pregnant women at 24–28 gestational weeks were recruited from Shandong province, China. A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted to elicit pregnant women's preferences for GDM screening strategy defined by five attributes: number of blood draws, out-of-pocket costs, screening waiting-time, number of hospital visits, and positive diagnosis rate. A mixed logistic model was employed to quantify maternal preferences, and to estimate the relative importance of included attributes in determining pregnant women's preferences for two routinely applied screening strategies (“one-step”: 75 g oral glucose tolerance test [OGTT] and “two-step”: 50 g glucose challenge-test plus 75 g OGTT). Preference heterogeneity was also investigated.
Chinese pregnant women preferred the “one-step” screening strategy to the full “two-step” strategy, but were indifferent between “one-step” and the first step of “two-step” strategies.