The Perception of Premarital Genetic Screening within Young Jordanian Individuals

Assessment of genetic familiarity and genetic knowledge among Palestinian university students

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Genetic knowledge and familiarity among the population represent the lane toward effective participation in social decisions regarding genetic issues. This cross sectional research aimed to assess genetic knowledge and familiarity among university students in Palestine.

METHODS

The familiarity with genetics was evaluated using the Genetic Literacy and Comprehension instrument (GLAC), and genetic knowledge was measured using a 16-item scale of prevalent genetic concepts.

RESULTS

Among the 624 participants, 59.5% were females. 38.8% reported family history of genetic diseases. The genetic familiarity mean score was 4.83 and the genetic knowledge mean total score was 11.5. Students' genetic familiarity was high for the terms chromosome and genetic while it was low for the terms sporadic and vulnerability. Genetic knowledge was highest for gene definition while it was the lowest regarding the number of human genes. The age group, year of study, and learning genetic courses were the significant predictors of familiarity among medical students. The year of study, family history of genetic diseases, parental consanguinity, and learning genetic courses were the significant variables associated with genetic knowledge among medical students. Regarding the non-medical group of participants, all study variables were significant for both familiarity and knowledge scores except for age group with familiarity.

CONCLUSION

Genetic familiarity and knowledge among Palestinian university students are inadequate. Consanguinity and hereditary disorders are prevalent in Palestine. These findings encourage university stakeholders to take action to improve genetic knowledge and familiarity among students through both appropriate pedagogical and non-pedagogical interventions.

Knowledge and Perception of and Attitude toward a Premarital Screening Program in Qatar: A Cross-Sectional Study

Premarital screening (PMS) is a primary preventive measure to decrease the incidence of certain genetic disorders and sexually transmitted diseases. This study aimed to explore the knowledge and perception of and the attitude toward PMS and predictors of knowledge and attitude. A cross-sectional study was conducted among Qatar University students using an online survey. Multivariable regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with PMS knowledge and attitude. A total of 476 students participated in the study; 424 (89.1%) were females; two-thirds were 18–21 years old. Only 100 participants had heard about PMS. Knowledge of PMS was significantly associated with females, students enrolled in a health-related college, and non-consanguineous marriage of a participant’s parents. The majority of the participants agreed that genetic diseases are psychological and economic burdens. For attitude, only 178 participants were willing to cancel marriages, given incompatible PMS results. The following factors were positively associated with attitude: PMS knowledge, enrollment in a health-related college, and the belief that PMS does not interfere with destiny. Our study findings revealed that despite the mandatory PMS in Qatar, the study participants, future couples, had low knowledge about the program. Therefore, strategies to increase awareness of PMS should be considered toward improving its outcomes.

Factors Affecting the Willingness to Undertake Premarital Screening Test Among Prospective Marital Individuals

Introduction

Awareness toward premarital screening test and its influence on preventing high risk marriages has become a concern to the health care system in Oman. This is due to the increased rates of inherited diseases and genetic disorders among the Omani population secondary to consanguineous marriages.

Objectives

This cross-sectional study aims to describe the utilization of premarital screening tests of selected university study participants as future prospective couples.

Methods

The study included 400 Omani study participants from different majors at a national governmental university that receives students from all over the country. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire.

Results

Out of the 400 study participants 193 [48.3%] were females and 195 [48.8%] were males, and 380 [95%] were unmarried and 19 [4.8%] were married. Personal and family history of hereditary diseases and consanguinity between parents were reported by 40 participants [10%], 158 [39.5%] and 175 [43.8%] respectively. Three hundred and sixty-one [90.3%] of the total participants were aware of the availability of premarital screening tests in Oman. A total of 357 [89.3%] thought it is necessary to do a premarital screening test and 367 [91.8%] agreed to carry out it in the future. The novel contribution of this manuscript is that our logistic regression showed that people with personal or family history of hereditary disease, and have consanguinity between parents, being a female did not show willingness to undertake the screening while those who are married, have higher GPA, and older supported it.

Conclusion

Usability of the freely available premarital screening is low despite the study participants awareness and willingness. Future studies should target those who have a history of genetic disease and females as we found them not willing to undertake the test in this study. We also recommend putting in place mandatory rules and regulations for premarital screening tests with better counselling strategies.

Knowledge and attitude of Engaged and Recently Married Couples Toward Premarital Screening: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background and Objective: Despite that inherited (thalassemia and SCA) and infectious (hepatitis B, hepatitis C and AIDs) diseases and their risk factor consanguineous marriage are widespread among Yemen population, community-based awareness studies towards premarital screening (PMS) is extremely limited, so our study is designed to elicit knowledge and attitude of engaged and recently married couples in Taiz (Yemen) toward PMS. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from April to September 2021 at Taiz. A well-structured questionnaire was designed and then delivered to participants to collect data. Results: The results revealed that majority of respondents (83.60%-94.18%) had knowledge about inherited and infectious diseases, respectively, and educational institution was the main knowledge source. Females had significantly higher knowledge than males (P ≤ .01), except about AIDs since no difference (P = .539). The results also revealed that majority of respondents had positive attitudes toward PMS, except toward AIDs testing since 70% of males and 68.91% of females had negative attitudes. The majority of respondents agreed that screening reduces the diseases incidence. Approximately half of respondents (50.79%-56.61%) tend to go ahead for marriage in case of positive results for inherited and infectious diseases respectively. Making PMS as an obligatory step prior engagement was agreed by 47.62% of respondents (45.71% of males, 48.74% of females). Conclusion: A high level of knowledge and positive attitudes toward inherited and infectious diseases and PMS were reported. This knowledge reflected on the agreement of majority of respondents regarding PMS importance in term of reduction of diseases incidence.