Skip to main content
SMFM 2025 Pregnancy Meeting Main banner
Final Program


Program Book
Icon Legend
Presentation Icons
Additional registration fee required
Additional registration fee required
CME Credit Offered
CME Credit Offered
Abstract Award
Abstract Award
Recording
Recording
Poster Icons
Additional registration fee required
Additional registration fee required
Faculty have requested this content not be shared on social media
Faculty have requested this content not be shared on social media
CME Credit Offered
CME Credit Offered
Abstract Award
Abstract Award
Back

Poster Session 2

(637) Preconception Counseling: Understanding the Patient Experience

Thursday, January 30, 2025
4:00 PM – 6:00 PM  
Objective: To characterize health conditions addressed during MFM preconception counseling and to evaluate patient understanding of these with visit satisfaction and provider recommendations regarding future conception.

Study Design: This is a prospective study of patients receiving preconception counseling by MFM specialists at the University of Colorado School of Medicine Clinics (8/20-12/20).  Consented patients were asked to complete a 1-week follow-up survey about health conditions discussed at the appointment, conception recommendations, and satisfaction with counseling. Concordance of conditions discussed was defined as the patient identifying ≥80% of the conditions documented by the MFM as having been discussed. SAS was used to perform appropriate statistics.

Results: Of the 192 study participants, most were ≥30 years (77%), married/partnered (94%), and non-Hispanic white (85%).  Topics discussed with the highest patient-provider agreement were advanced maternal age (k=0.84), hypothyroidism (k=0.80), chronic hypertension (k=0.70), uterine abnormalities (k=0.68), and prior poor OB outcomes (k=0.68). Topics with the lowest agreement were infertility (k=0.5), genetic carrier (k=0.08), and weight management (k=0.14) (Figure 1). Patient satisfaction was high (97%) and similar for all topics except that those with low agreement were less likely to believe that the preconception visit would increase their chances for a healthy pregnancy (7 6.1% vs. 90.0%; p=0.01).

Conclusion: Patient-provider agreement was lowest for standardized preconception topics (e.g. weight, infertility) indicating that patients were less likely to recall topics they had not intended to discuss. Low agreement in counseling topics also impacted patients’ belief that they will have a healthy future pregnancy. Providing p</span>atient-centered counseling using shared decision-making is essential to improving preconception care.