Development and validation of breastfeeding and dietary education package for women with gestational diabetes mellitus

BACKGROUND: Recent findings show that a longer breastfeeding duration and proper dietary management could lower the risk of postnatal diabetes. An excellent and interactive education module on breastfeeding and diet may effectively improve breastfeeding practices and dietary knowledge among women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Therefore, this study delves into developing and validating the content of Breastfeeding and Dietary Education Package (BFDEP) for women with GDM. METHOD: The development of the module involved three phases: need assessment, module development, and validation. Six experts deployed a content validity index (CVI) to evaluate three areas of the module, including objectives, structure or presentation, and relevance. Sixteen women with GDM were involved in the face validation process by assessing the “literacy presentation,” “illustrations,” “material is sufficiently specific,” and “quality of information.” RESULTS: Generally, I-CVI, S-CVI/Ave, and S-CVI/UA of the objectives, structure or presentation, and relevance revealed an excellent level of content validity. No alteration was needed for the domains of objective and relevance (S-CVI/Ave: 1.0, S-CVI/UA: 1.0). However, a minor revision was required in the structure or presentation domain (S-CVI/Ave: 0.98, S-CVI/UA: 0.90). The experts also thought that some module pages were wordy, and a change of font color was needed. The module was thus modified accordingly. For face validation, “literacy presentation” and “material is sufficiently specific” had a 99% positive response, while “illustrations” and “quality of information” had 100% positive feedback. CONCLUSION: A BFDEP with excellent content validity was developed and can be implemented to improve breastfeeding practices and dietary knowledge among women with GDM.