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Genetic Counseling for Alcohol Addiction: Assessing Perceptions and Potential Utility in Individuals with Lived Experience and Their Family Members

  • Original Research
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Journal of Genetic Counseling

Abstract

Though addictions to substances including alcohol are highly heritable, there have been no studies regarding the possible applicability of genetic counseling to this set of conditions. Adults (≥18 years old) with a personal and/or family history of alcohol addiction were recruited to participate in an online survey-based study comprising 43 questions about beliefs/concern about recurrence risk and etiology of alcohol addiction and its impact on childbearing decisions, and perceptions of potential utility of genetic counseling for alcohol addiction. We applied primarily descriptive statistics, but also tested the hypotheses that perceiving genetic counseling to be useful would be associated with: 1) increasing importance attributed to genetics in the etiology of alcohol addiction, and 2) greater concern about recurrence of alcohol addiction (in self and/or children). Overall, the 113 participants recognized the multifactorial nature of alcohol addiction but reported a wide range of estimated recurrence risks for first-degree relatives. Overall, 62% perceived genetic counseling for alcohol addiction to be potentially beneficial. Participants were more likely to perceive a benefit from genetic counseling if they were concerned about recurrence for themselves (p = .021) or perceived genetics to be etiologically important in alcohol addiction (p = .024). Future studies are warranted to evaluate the outcomes of genetic counseling for addictions with respect to patient understanding, lifestyle modifications and psychological adaptation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Janice Edwards and Peggy Walker for their feedback and edits, and Max Tiller for assistance with statistics and data analysis. The authors were grateful to receive funding support for this study through the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) Psychiatric Special Interest Group. JA was supported by the Canada Research Chairs program and BC Mental Health and Substance Use Services.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Genetics, Birth Defects, and Metabolism, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Fayth M. Kalb

  2. Department of Genetic Counseling, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Two Medical Park Suite 208, Columbia, SC, 29203, USA

    Victoria Vincent

  3. Department of Psychology, Francis Marion University, Florence, SC, USA

    Teresa Herzog

  4. Departments of Psychiatry and Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Jehannine Austin

Authors
  1. Fayth M. Kalb
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  2. Victoria Vincent
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  3. Teresa Herzog
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  4. Jehannine Austin
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Correspondence to Victoria Vincent.

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Conflict of Interest

FK, VV, TH, and JA declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human Studies and 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. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. The study was approved by the University of South Carolina Ethics Review Board (Pro00047939).

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

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Kalb, F.M., Vincent, V., Herzog, T. et al. Genetic Counseling for Alcohol Addiction: Assessing Perceptions and Potential Utility in Individuals with Lived Experience and Their Family Members. J Genet Counsel 26, 963–970 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10897-017-0075-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10897-017-0075-x

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