Effects of Hypothetical Type 2 Diabetes Genetic Testing on Parents' Efforts to Prevent Diabetes in Children.

Source

1University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.

Abstract

Objective. To examine the effect of hypothetical genetic susceptibility test results on diabetic parents' intention to prevent type 2 diabetes (T2D) in their children. Methods. Parents with T2D indicated their intention to prevent T2D in their youngest child at baseline and after a hypothetical positive and negative T2D genetic test result. We calculated mean/median "preventive intention scores" for each scenario and examined the association between parents' score change and parent/child characteristics. Results. A total of 63% of parents reported that their child had "almost no risk" or "slight risk" of developing T2D. Parents' median baseline preventive intention score was 8. It increased to 10 after a positive test result and decreased to 5 after a negative test result. Conclusions. Negative T2D genetic susceptibility test results may decrease diabetic parents' intentions to prevent T2D for their children. Future research studies in a real-life clinical context should examine this phenomenon.