Prevalence and Risk Factors of Gestational Diabetes in Iran: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Background: Gestational Diabetes (GD) is one of the major public health issues. The purpose of the present study was to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the risk factors and prevalence rate of this disorder in Iran.

Methods: This systematic review and meta- analysis article was prepared using the databases of Science Direct, Pub-Med, Scopus, Magiran, Iranmedex and SID, Google search engine, Gray Literature, reference lists check and hand searching using keywords such as "prevalence", "gestational diabetes mellitus", "GDM", "risk factor*", "Iran" and "Postpartum Diabetes". The selected papers were fully reviewed and the required information for the systematic re-view was extracted and summarized using extraction table in Microsoft Office Excel software.

Results: Twenty-four of 1011 papers were quite relevant to the objectives of the review so they were included. The mean age of the participants was 29.43±4.97 yr and the prevalence of GDMwas 3.41% (the highest and the lowest prevalence rates were 18.6% and 1.3% respectively). Among the influential factors mentioned in the literature, poten-tial causes of GDM are gestational age, history of gestational diabetes, family history of diabetes, body mass index, abortions and parity, and history of macrosomia.

Conclusion: Considering the high prevalence of postpartum diabetes and its related factors in Iran, strategic planning for disease prevention and reduction is inevitable.