Awareness and Attitude Toward Genetic Counselling Services in South of Iran

Background: Genetic counseling is the process of guidance in which people understand and adjust to the psychological, clinical, and familial implications of genetic impacts on disease. As a preventive strategy, genetic counselling has an important role in increasing families’ knowledge and awareness about their condition. Objectives: The present study was conducted to assess knowledge and attitude of couples who referred for premarital laboratory testing in the south of Iran. Methods: One hundred and twenty-five couples were recruited randomly from the premarital referrals to the Bandar Abbas Health Center in Hormozgan province, south of Iran. The questionnaire has been considered by five experts in the field. Context validity index has been calculated as 0.89. All questionnaires were filled by each partner. The collected data were statistically analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS 16.0). Results: The total mean age was 26.7 years which among them 125 couples, 41.6% were consanguineous. There were significant relations between education, monthly income, job, religious beliefs and history of a genetic disorders in the family members and some aspects of awareness and attitude toward genetic counselling (P < 0.05). Conclusions: Our present study showed the impact of socioeconomic status on attitude toward genetic counselling in marriage decision and co-operation for genetic counselling in multiple secessions. Based on our finding we suggest improvement of awareness toward genetic counselling. An educational curriculum can be designed at the school and undergraduate level besides national media in all aspects especially premarital and fertility decisions.