Investigating the knowledge of and public attitudes towards genetic testing within the Visegrad countries: a cross-secti
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Investigating the knowledge of and public attitudes towards genetic testing within the Visegrad countries: a cross-sectional study Klára Bíró1* , Viktor Dombrádi1, Zita Fekete2, Gábor Bányai1, Klára Boruzs1, Attila Nagy3 and Róza Ádány4,5
Abstract Background: Previous studies have investigated various factors that can determine the attitudes of the citizens considering genetic testing. However, none of them investigated how these attitudes may differ between the Visegrad countries. Methods: In this cross-sectional study a questionnaire developed by Dutch researchers was translated and used in Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia and Poland. In each country 1000 adult citizens were asked on the topics of personal benefits regarding genetic tests, genetic determinism, and finally, the availability and usage of genetic testing. Multivariate robust regression model was created including several possible influencing factors (such as age, sex, education, marital status, religiousness, and having a genetic test within the nuclear family) to identify the possible differences between the four countries. Results: The Hungarian citizens had the most positive opinion on the personal benefits of genetic testing followed by the Czech, Slovak and Polish. All differences were significant in this regard. Considering genetic determinism, the Slovak citizens had a significantly firmer belief in this issue compared to the Hungarians. No other significant differences were observed in this domain. On the topic of the availability and use of genetic testing the Hungarian citizens had the most accepting opinion among the four countries, followed by the Czech citizens. In this domain the Polish and Slovak answers did not differ significantly from each other. Conclusions: Significant differences were observed even when considering various confounding effects. As the underlying reasons for these discrepancies are unknown, future studies should investigate this enigma among the four countries. Keywords: Genetic testing, Attitudes, Public, Citizens, Visegrad countries
Background More than 15 years after the completion of Human Genome Project not only health professionals, but also the public have to face the more and more widespread implications of individualised medicine. Rapid development of genome-based diagnostics in the last decades resulted * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Health Systems Management and Quality Management for Health Care, Faculty of Public Health, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
in the growing number of diseases with appropriate genetic testing [1, 2]. Many areas of health services benefit from advantages of precision medicine, and public health is no exception [3–5]. Expanding knowledge on contribution of genetic factors to the development of common chronic diseases (such as cardiovascular, metabolic and malignant diseases) has led to the utilization of information in preventive medicine as preventi
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