Motivations for genetic testing for lung cancer risk among young smokers

Abstract

Objective To examine why young people might want to undergo genetic susceptibility testing for lung cancer despite knowing tested gene variants are associated with small increases in disease risk. Methods We used a mixed-methods approach to evaluate motives for and against genetic testing and the association between these motivations and testing intentions in 128 college students who smoke. Results Exploratory factor analysis yielded four reliable factors: Test Skepticism, Test Optimism, Knowledge Enhancement, and Smoking Optimism. Test Optimism and Knowledge Enhancement correlated positively with intentions to test in bivariate and multivariate analyses (ps<.001). Test Skepticism correlated negatively with testing intentions in multivariate analyses (p<.05). Open-ended questions assessing testing motivations generally replicated themes of the quantitative survey. Conclusions In addition to learning about health risks, young people may be motivated to seek genetic testing for reasons such as gaining knowledge about new genetic technologies more broadly.

Information Topics of Greatest Interest for Return of Genome Sequencing Results among Women Diagnosed with Breast Cancer at a Young Age

“…Across different types of possible results, participants expressed interest in learning about health implications, risk and prevalence statistics, causes of the variant, and causes of diseases, both for themselves and for family members. The finding of the importance of health implications is consistent with prior literature; learning health information was a primary motivation to pursue genetic testing and genome sequencing in previous studies (Christenhusz et al 2014; Facio et al 2011; Hitch et al 2014; Leventhal et al 2013; O’Neill et al 2013; Wright et al 2014). For instance, focus group participants from a cohort undergoing clinical sequencing expected their results to provide information about their current or future health (Wright et al 2014).…”

Young Smokers' Interpretations of the Estimated Lung Cancer Risk Associated with a Common Genetic Variant of Low Penetrance

“…Previous research suggests a major reason people generally are interested in personal genetic information is curiosity [4], and we have previously demonstrated this in our sample of young smokers [20]. Our finding in the present study that there was no association between interpretation of the risk information presented and interest in testing build on this notion by suggesting interest is not fundamentally based on misunderstanding or overinterpreting the strength of disease risk conferred by the gene variant.…”

“…Descriptive statistics for the participants are published elsewhere [20, 21]; table 1 shows the demographic and additional smoking-related characteristics.…”

“…As described elsewhere [20, 21], participants were smokers aged 18–21 years who attended the University of Florida. The inclusion criteria were being a student at the University of Florida, aged 17–22 years, having smoked at least 1 cigarette in the prior week and at least 50 cigarettes in their lifetime.…”

Introducing genetic testing for cardiovascular disease in primary care: a qualitative study

“…14 However, using genetic testing in primary care could be useful as a tool to encourage risk-reducing behaviour in those at risk of developing CVD. [16][17][18] Arguably, this may be more effective than conventional cardiovascular risk assessment alone, as genetic risk may seem more personal and salient than family history. 19 In this study, adults who had had a recent cardiovascular risk assessment in general practice were offered a genetic test for CHD to explore the acceptability and feasibility of the procedure and assessment.…”