ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Clinical Diabetes
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1574480
This article is part of the Research TopicHighlights in Diabetes and PregnancyView all 3 articles
Assessment of Neonatologists' Competency in Managing Gestational Diabetes Complications: A Cross-sectional Analysis from China
Provisionally accepted
Yi Yang
Yao Yang*- The Central Hospital of EnshiTujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Enshi, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) significantly impacts long-term child health outcomes. This study assessed neonatologists' knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) regarding GDM-related complications in offspring.Methods: A cross-sectional study of 1,614 neonatologists in Hubei Province, China, utilized a validated 28-item questionnaire examining knowledge (12 items), attitudes (8 items), and practices (8 items). Responses were scored on a trichotomous scale. Binary logistic regression analyzed predictors of satisfactory performance across domains.Results: Among 1,614 neonatologists, 1,437 (89%) demonstrated satisfactory knowledge, 1,513 (94%) positive attitudes, and 1,165 (72%) good practices. Knowledgeable practitioners were significantly older (45.4 vs 36.2 years; OR 1.42 [95% CI 1.40-1.44]; p<.001) with greater experience (13.8 vs 10.5 years; 1.41 [1.35-1.46]; p<.001). Academic hospital affiliation showed higher competency versus community settings (0.12 [0.08-0.20]; p<.001). Practice patterns varied by education, with MD-PhD holders demonstrating higher odds of good practice (1.32 [1.03-1.71]; P=.032) compared with fellowship training (0.69 [0.51-0.92]; p=.009). Universal documentation of maternal GDM coexisted with suboptimal rates of periodic evaluations (81%) and specialist referrals (84%). Knowledge competency (7.52 [5.90-9.60]; p<.001) and positive attitudes (15.81 [9.90-25.26]; p<.001) strongly predicted practice patterns.Conclusions: Despite high knowledge levels and positive attitudes, particularly among experienced practitioners in academic settings, implementation gaps exist in follow-up protocols and specialist referrals. Practice setting significantly influences care delivery, suggesting the need for standardized protocols across healthcare tiers.
Keywords: gestational diabetes mellitus, Prevalence, Neonatology, KAP, China cardiomyopathy, alongside significantly
Received: 14 Feb 2025; Accepted: 05 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yao Yang, The Central Hospital of EnshiTujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Enshi, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.