A Systematic Review of the Impact of Genetic Counseling on Risk Perception Accuracy

This review presents an overview of the impact of genetic counseling on risk perception accuracy in papers published between January 2000 and February 2007. The results suggest that genetic counseling may have a positive impact on risk perception accuracy, though some studies observed no impact at a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of genetic counseling 2009-06, Vol.18 (3), p.217-228
Main Authors: Smerecnik, Chris M. R., Mesters, Ilse, Verweij, Eline, de Vries, Nanne K., de Vries, Hein
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Biomedicine
Clinical Psychology
Counselling
Ethics
Genetic Counseling
Genetic counselling
Genetic testing
Gynecology
Human Genetics
Humans
Original Research
Perceptions
Public Health
Risk Assessment
Risk perception
Systematic review
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Summary:This review presents an overview of the impact of genetic counseling on risk perception accuracy in papers published between January 2000 and February 2007. The results suggest that genetic counseling may have a positive impact on risk perception accuracy, though some studies observed no impact at all, or only for low-risk participants. Several implications for future research can be deduced. First, future researchers should link risk perception changes to objective risk estimates, define risk perception accuracy as the correct counseled risk estimate, and report both the proportion of individuals who correctly estimate their risk and the average overestimation of the risk. Second, as the descriptions of the counseling sessions were generally poor, future research should include more detailed description of these sessions and link their content to risk perception outcomes to allow interpretation of the results. Finally, the effect of genetic counseling should be examined for a wider variety of hereditary conditions. Genetic counselors should provide the necessary context in which counselees can understand risk information, use both verbal and numerical risk estimates to communicate personal risk information, and use visual aids when communicating numerical risk information.
ISSN:1059-7700
1573-3599
DOI:10.1007/s10897-008-9210-z