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Attitudes Toward Autism Spectrum Disorders Among Students of Allied Health Professions

  • Original Research
  • Published:
Journal of Genetic Counseling

Abstract

The prevalence of autism has increased dramatically. The objectives of this study were to explore attitudes toward prenatal diagnosis to detect autism prenatally and avoid having an affected child and to understand social acceptability of these disorders among students of allied health professions. In this study, college students of nursing and health systems management answered a structured self-report questionnaire (n = 305). The first part addressed the respondent’s personal data. The second part targeted the respondent’s attitudes toward prenatal diagnosis of non-life-threatening disorders, including autism spectrum disorders. We found that almost two thirds of the students responded that they would not proceed with a pregnancy if the child were diagnosed with autism, and more than half thought that they would not continue with a pregnancy if the fetus were diagnosed with Asperger’s. Age, level of religiosity, and years of education were influential. This study is limited in scope; however, the positive attitude of the students toward prenatal diagnosis to avoid having an affected child might also reflect a negative view of autism spectrum disorders in future health care professionals. Further research of attitudes and the social acceptability of autism spectrum disorders, particularly among health care professionals, is required.

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Notes

  1. However, this might prove to be a difficult task as variable expressivity, pleiotropic effects, and incomplete penetrance associated with CNVs and SNVs associated with ASD present significant challenges for genetic counseling and PND (Jiang et al. 2014).

  2. In fact, in Israel parents are actually funding chromosome microarray research (unknowingly). Even parents of perfectly normal children pursue this test (personal communication).

  3. Almost 10,000 children are born with Down syndrome (DS) in the United States each year (one in 691 live births). Since birth rates of DS are highest among mothers of advanced maternal age, in many countries, the cost for PND is covered by most health care/insurance plans for women over the age of 35. However, current data show that 80 % of all children with DS are born to mothers under 35 years (Bunt and Bunt 2014). Hence PND for DS is now being offered also to younger women (personal communication).

  4. Recently, a very popular TV drama and several documentaries have presented in Israel some of the difficulties potentially experienced by parents of a child with autism.

  5. In the last Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5), Asperger’s syndrome has been excluded from the ASDs. However, for the purpose of this study, since most people still recognize this term as a form of autism, we still use AS to address high functioning autism, according to DSM-4.

  6. A limitation of this result, however, is that DS was included in this question and the respondents’ very negative view toward DS could have affected the overall negative attitude toward all the disorders in this item.

  7. This link is assumed; further research is needed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Systems Management, Yezreel Valley College, Emek Yezreel, 19300, Israel

    Frida Simonstein & Michal Mashiach-Eizenberg

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  1. Frida Simonstein
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  2. Michal Mashiach-Eizenberg
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Correspondence to Frida Simonstein.

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Frida Simonstein and Michal Mashiach-Eizenberg 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 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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

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Simonstein, F., Mashiach-Eizenberg, M. Attitudes Toward Autism Spectrum Disorders Among Students of Allied Health Professions. J Genet Counsel 25, 1276–1285 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10897-016-9969-2

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