Parents may be willing to allow genetic testing for adult conditions in their children

Tercyak KP. Pediatrics. 2011;doi:10.1542/peds.2010-0938.

Issue: May 2011

A cohort of parents perceived the benefits of genetic testing for eight common adult conditions as outweighing the risks, according to study results.

Researchers from several sites in the US conducted the study with dual aims: to determine attitudes toward genetic testing in children and to identify why parents had these attitudes. The health conditions identified were colon, skin and lung cancers; heart disease; osteoporosis; high blood pressure; high cholesterol; and type 2 diabetes. The final analysis involved 219 parents.

Eligible parents were enrolled in a large, group-practice health plan. They were offered a multiplex genetic test for susceptibility to the studied conditions and completed a survey evaluating attitudes regarding their willingness to allow their child to be tested, the risks and benefits of the test for their child and other psychosocial factors.

Parents were asked to weigh risks and benefits on a scale of one to seven. Results indicated that parents viewed the benefits (mean score=5; standard deviation [SD]=1.3) as outweighing the risks (mean score=3.1; SD=1.4).

Variables affecting the parents’ view that the benefits of genetic testing outweighed the risks included strongly endorsing intentions to change a child’s lifestyle; valuing gene-health knowledge; valuing behavior-health knowledge; perceiving it as easy to learn about genetics; anticipating positive emotional reactions to learning children’s decreased disease risks; and intending to undergo testing themselves.

Multivariate analysis was conducted to determine factors independently linked to parental willingness to allow genetic testing in their children. Those factors included being the child’s mother (vs. the father); greater perceived risk for diseases in their child; perception that the child is at greater disease risk; valuing gene-health knowledge; being less conflicted in learning about genetic health information; anticipating positive reaction to decreased risk in the child; intending to undergo testing themselves; and perception that the benefits of testing outweigh the risks (adjusted R²=0.57, P<.0001).

Also on a scale of one to seven — with one being identified as “not at all important” and seven being identified as “very important” — parents had a strong decisional balance in understanding gene-health relationships (mean score=6; SD=1.3) and behavior-health relationships (mean score=6.2; SD=1.3).

Parental difficulty in learning about the child’s genetic disease risks also was assessed on a one to seven scale. Parents anticipated difficulty in learning about these risks (mean score=4.1; SD=2). However, strong positive reactions to increased disease risk information were observed (mean score=6.1; SD=1.4).

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