Abstract
This study's objective was to assess the knowledge of prenatal screening for Trisomy 21 in pregnant women in one institution in Canada. A cross-sectional survey measuring demographics, knowledge of screening, and health literacy, was administered to pregnant women. Of the 135 women who completed the survey, 74% had adequate knowledge of Trisomy 21 and associated screening procedures. Twenty-eight point one percent of women did not receive any counseling. Overall, 29.5% of women did not know that the screening test was optional and 10.2% of women underwent screening prior to having been counseled. Multigravidity (p < 0.05) and prior counseling (p < 0.001) were positively correlated with knowledge while first language other than English (p < 0.001) was negatively correlated with knowledge. Given these findings, an effort needs to be made on the part of health care providers to increase counseling rates to 100%, stressing the optional nature of the test to attain true informed consent.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Generalist Division, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Toronto, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology for summer students to finish study recruitment. The funders had no involvement in the study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; or decision to submit the article for publication.
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This work was supported by the Generalist Division, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Toronto, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology for summer students to finish study recruitment. The funders had no involvement in the study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; or decision to submit the article for publication.
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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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This study received research ethics board approval from Mount Sinai Hospital (14–0312-E).
Informed Consent
All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.
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Sheinis, M., Bensimon, K. & Selk, A. Patients’ Knowledge of Prenatal Screening for Trisomy 21. J Genet Counsel 27, 95–103 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10897-017-0126-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10897-017-0126-3