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Clients’ Perception of Outcome of Team-Based Prenatal and Reproductive Genetic Counseling in Serbian Service Using the Perceived Personal Control (PPC) Questionnaire

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Journal of Genetic Counseling

Abstract

This is the first study in Serbia and the region of South-East Europe dedicated to clients’ perception of outcome and efficiency of prenatal and reproductive genetic counseling. The primary aim of this study was to assess overall value and success of genetic counseling in prenatal and reproductive care with regard to perceived personal control of clients, reflecting also in a part patient comprehension, knowledge retention, and empowerment in decision-making. The standardized Perceived Personal Control questionnaire (PPC) was used for the assessment of 239 female participants. First, we performed a complete validation of the psychometric characteristics of the Serbian-language version of the PPC questionnaire. The validation of the questionnaire permits other researchers from Serbian-speaking regions of South-East Europe to use this standard instrument to assess the effectiveness of prenatal genetic counseling in their communities and analyze advantages and disadvantages of their counseling models. We also measured social and demographic characteristics of participants. Further, we analyzed effects of our team-based prenatal and reproductive genetic counseling model through (a) calculation of PPC scores at three different stages (before initial, after initial, and before second counseling session), and (b) by assessing participants’ responses by indication for referral (advanced maternal age, abnormal biochemical screening, family history of hereditary disorders, maternal exposure to drugs, exposure to radiation, exposure to infective agents, infertility or recurrent abortions, and miscellaneous). The results indicate that participants’ knowledge after initial counseling increased significantly and after that remained stable and sustainable. A satisfactory level of confidence among participants had been achieved, in that many felt an increased sense of control over their situation and emotional response to it. Indirectly, these results indicate the success of a team-based prenatal genetic counseling model, which has not been assessed in the literature to date.

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Notes

  1. Cronbach’s α is a coefficient of internal consistency. It is commonly used as an estimate of the reliability of a psychometric test for a sample of participants that give us the answer to which extent the questionnaire should be regarded as one-dimensional instrument (Cronbach and Meehl 1955). This statistical evaluation indicates the extent to which all items or subscales of the PPC questionnaire are separated or correlated and explain a part of a unique experience.

  2. Principal component analysis (PCA) is a statistical procedure, which uses transformation to convert a set of observations of possibly correlated variables into a set of values of linearly uncorrelated variables called principal components. We opted for the non-orthogonal rotation (Oblimin with Kaiser Normalization, δ = 0), assuming that our factors which are items of the PPC questionnaire correlate with each other. The number of principal components is less than or equal to the number of original variables. This transformation is defined in such way that the first principal component has the largest possible variance (that is, accounts for as much of the variability in the data as possible), and each succeeding component in turn has the highest variance possible under the constraint. Eigenvalue is a statistical constituent of factor analysis and represents a scalar (value) for which there exists a nonzero vector such that the scalar times the vector equals the value of the vector under a given linear transformation (Anthony 1999).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Republic of Serbia (GC and IN Grant No. 175091).

Conflict of Interest

Goran Cuturilo declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Olivera Kontic Vucinic declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Ivana Novakovic declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Svetlana Ignjatovic declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Marija Mijovic declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Nenad Sulovic declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Dusan Vukolic declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Milica Komnenic declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Jasmina Tadic declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Aleksandar Cetkovic declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Aleksandra Belic declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Aleksandar Ljubic declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Human Studies and Informed Consent

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Written informed consent was obtained from all patients included in the study.

Animal Studies

No animal studies were carried out by the authors for this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Goran Cuturilo, Olivera Kontic Vucinic, Ivana Novakovic & Aleksandar Ljubic

  2. Department of Medical Genetics, University Children’s Hospital, Tirsova 10, 11000, Belgrade, Serbia

    Goran Cuturilo & Marija Mijovic

  3. Clinic for Gynecology and Obstetrics, Clinical Center of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia

    Olivera Kontic Vucinic, Nenad Sulovic, Dusan Vukolic, Milica Komnenic, Jasmina Tadic, Aleksandar Cetkovic, Aleksandra Belic & Aleksandar Ljubic

  4. Institute for Human Genetics, Belgrade, Serbia

    Ivana Novakovic

  5. Institute for Medical Biochemistry, Clinical Center of Serbia, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Svetlana Ignjatovic

  6. Medigroup, General Hospital, Belgrade, Serbia

    Aleksandar Ljubic

Authors
  1. Goran Cuturilo
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  2. Olivera Kontic Vucinic
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  3. Ivana Novakovic
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  4. Svetlana Ignjatovic
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  5. Marija Mijovic
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  6. Nenad Sulovic
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  8. Milica Komnenic
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  9. Jasmina Tadic
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  10. Aleksandar Cetkovic
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  11. Aleksandra Belic
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  12. Aleksandar Ljubic
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Correspondence to Goran Cuturilo.

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Cuturilo, G., Vucinic, O.K., Novakovic, I. et al. Clients’ Perception of Outcome of Team-Based Prenatal and Reproductive Genetic Counseling in Serbian Service Using the Perceived Personal Control (PPC) Questionnaire. J Genet Counsel 25, 189–197 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10897-015-9857-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10897-015-9857-1

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