Abstract
Objective: Psychological adaptation is an important but understudied outcome among patients who undergo DNA evaluation to identify a cause of an unexplained health condition. This longitudinal study examines the relationship between the degree to which participants' hopes for diagnostic genomic sequencing were fulfilled and their psychological adaptation to their sequencing results over time. Method: Secondary analyses were conducted on data from a subset of adult participants from the North Carolina Clinical Genomic Evaluation by Next-Generation Exome Sequencing study with physical health conditions of suspected genetic etiology (such as neurological disorders or cancer; n = 192). Hope fulfillment and type of hope (hopes related to personal-family health implications vs. hoping to help others-advance science) were assessed as predictors of change in psychological adaptation (Psychological Adaptation Scale) and 4 subscales (coping efficacy, selfesteem, social integration, spiritual-existential well-being), from 2 weeks to 6 months after disclosure of genomic sequencing results. Results: Controlling for covariates, degree of hope fulfillment was associated with increased general psychological adaptation (β = .14, p = .02), social integration (β = .17, p = .01), and spiritual-existential well-being (β = .15, p = .02). Type of hope did not modify effects of degree of hope fulfillment on adaptation outcomes. Conclusions: The degree to which patients' genomic sequencing-related hopes are fulfilled may be an important driver of long-term psychological adaptation after genomic sequencing. Evaluating the degree to which patients' hopes are fulfilled may allow clinicians to gain insight into the likely trajectory for patient adaptation after learning their results from genomic sequencing.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 527-535 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Health Psychology |
Volume | 38 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2019 |
Funding
This work was supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH; Grant U01 HG006487-01) and the TraCS Institute from the Clinical and Translational Science Award program of NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (Grant 1UL1TR001111). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
Keywords
- Genetic counseling
- Genomic sequencing
- Hope
- Hope fulfillment
- Psychological adaptation
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Applied Psychology
- Psychiatry and Mental health