Effect of Direct-to-Consumer Genomewide Profiling to Assess Disease Risk
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Discussion
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Implication
Randomized trial examines psychological and behavioral effects of consumer genomewide testing in selected individuals, suggesting minimal impact.
Key Points
- This research aims to evaluate the psychological, behavioral, and clinical effects of direct-to-consumer genomewide profiling on consumers' health behaviors and anxiety.
- Recruited 3639 subjects from health and technology companies who purchased the Health Compass test.
- Subjects reported changes in anxiety symptoms, dietary fat intake, and exercise behavior after a mean follow-up of 5.6 months.
- Analyzed correlations between test-related distress and estimated lifetime risk for assessed conditions.
- No significant changes were observed in anxiety symptoms (P=0.80), dietary fat intake (P=0.89), or exercise behavior (P=0.61).
- 90.3% of subjects experienced no test-related distress despite a positive correlation (β=0.117, P<0.001) with estimated lifetime risk.
- No significant increase in the use of screening tests was found post-testing.
Cite This Study
Bloss et al. (2011) studied this question.