How Uncertainty Influences Lay People ’s Attitudes and Risk Perceptions Concerning Predictive Genetic Testing and Risk Communication

Conclusion: For lay people, risk information, including the statistical numeric part, is perceived as highly normatively charged, often as an emotionally significant threat. It seems necessary to provide lay people with a deeper understanding of risk information and of the limitations of genetic knowledge with respect to one’s own health responsibility. Introduction Technological progress over the recent years has led to an unprecedented increase in speed and precision of genetic testing. The number of inherited disorders and risk factors that can be detected through genetic testing is growing rapidly and genetic testing has become almost a common component of routine medical care (Lerman et al., 2002). Diagnostically conclusive predictive genetic test results increasingly affect patients’ perceived responsibility for their health (e.g., Patenaude et al., 2002; D’Agincourt-Canning, 2006; Schicktanz, 2018). Predictive genetic testing – in contrast to diagnostic tests – aims at the risk assessment of how likely it is to develop a particular disease (especially a multifactorial disease) in the following years based on a statistical, probabilistic analysis (Genetic Alliance, 2009). Current studies have examined challenges for lay people in dealing with risk information from genetic testing (Engelhardt et al., 2017; Han et al., 2017; Solomon et al., 2017).1 They showed that perceived risk is an important subjective psychological phenomen...
Source: Frontiers in Genetics - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Source Type: research