Abstract
It is unknown whether or why genetic test reporting confers benefits in the understanding and management of cancer risk beyond what patients learn from counseling based on family history. A prospective nonexperimental control group study compared participants from melanoma-prone families who underwent CDKN2A/p16 (p16) genetic testing (27 carriers, 38 noncarriers) to participants from equivalently melanoma-prone families known not to carry a deleterious p16 mutation (31 no-test controls). All participants received equivalent counseling concerning elevated lifetime melanoma risk and corresponding recommendations for prevention and screening. Both immediately and 1 month after counseling, participants receiving a genetic test result reported greater understanding of their risk, decreased derogation of the risk information, and greater personal applicability of prevention recommendations than no-test controls. Decreased derogation of risk information after test reporting predicted further increases in understanding of melanoma risk and applicability of prevention recommendations 1 month later. Results suggest unique benefits of genetic test reporting in promoting understanding and acceptance of information about hereditary cancer risk and its management.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 740-753 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Journal of Behavioral Medicine |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 21 2015 |
Funding
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01 CA158322. The project described was supported by the National Center for Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant 8UL1TR000105 (formerly UL1RR025764). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Cancer Institute or the National Institutes of Health. Support was also received from the Huntsman Cancer Foundation (HCF), the Tom C. Mathews, Jr. Familial Melanoma Research Clinic endowment, the Pedigree and Population Resource of Huntsman Cancer Institute, and the Utah Population Database. This research was supported by the Utah Cancer Registry, which is funded by contract N01-PC-35141 from the National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program, with additional support from the Utah State Department of Health and the University of Utah. The authors acknowledge the use of the Genetic Counseling and Health Measurement and Survey Methods core facilities supported by the National Institutes of Health through National Cancer Institute Cancer Center Support Grant 5P30CA420-14 awarded to Huntsman Cancer Institute and additional support from the HCF. The authors gratefully acknowledge the generous participation of all the family members in this study, without whom this project would not have been possible. We thank also Pam Cassidy, Taylor Haskell, Sandie Edwards, Roger Edwards, Rebecca Stoffel, Dixie Thompson, Lisa Reynolds, Tami Calder, Michelle Allred, Melissa Shepherd, Teresa Stone, Jason Hawkes, Matt Haskell, and Janice Mathews for their contributions to the conduct of the study.
Keywords
- CDKN2A/p16
- Defensive processing
- Genetic testing
- Illness coherence
- Melanoma
- Understanding of risk
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Psychiatry and Mental health
- General Psychology
