Factors Affecting the Willingness to Undertake Premarital Screening Test Among Prospective Marital Individuals

Abstract

Introduction Awareness toward premarital screening test and its influence on preventing high risk marriages has become a concern to the health care system in Oman. This is due to the increased rates of inherited diseases and genetic disorders among the Omani population secondary to consanguineous marriages. Objectives This cross-sectional study aims to describe the utilization of premarital screening tests of selected university study participants as future prospective couples. Methods The study included 400 Omani study participants from different majors at a national governmental university that receives students from all over the country. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Results Out of the 400 study participants 193 [48.3%] were females and 195 [48.8%] were males, and 380 [95%] were unmarried and 19 [4.8%] were married. Personal and family history of hereditary diseases and consanguinity between parents were reported by 40 participants [10%], 158 [39.5%] and 175 [43.8%] respectively. Three hundred and sixty-one [90.3%] of the total participants were aware of the availability of premarital screening tests in Oman. A total of 357 [89.3%] thought it is necessary to do a premarital screening test and 367 [91.8%] agreed to carry out it in the future. The novel contribution of this manuscript is that our logistic regression showed that people with personal or family history of hereditary disease, and have consanguinity between parents, being a female did not show willingness to undertake the screening while those who are married, have higher GPA, and older supported it. Conclusion Usability of the freely available premarital screening is low despite the study participants awareness and willingness. Future studies should target those who have a history of genetic disease and females as we found them not willing to undertake the test in this study. We also recommend putting in place mandatory rules and regulations for premarital screening tests with better counselling strategies.

Assessing knowledge of sickle cell disease and health beliefs on premarital genetic screening among healthcare trainees at a tertiary institution: A cross‐sectional study

“…Furthermore, there was no statistically significant association between the age of study participants and knowledge of SCD, 23,24 and this contradicts our findings. The noticeable variations in the study finding could be attributed to the disparities in the age distributions of these two studies.…”

“…However, the populations employed by these studies were prospective couples and those married, which could account for the differences in the findings with regard to the current study. Furthermore, there was no statistically significant association between the age of study participants and knowledge of SCD, 23,24 and this contradicts our findings. The noticeable variations in the study finding could be attributed to the disparities in the age distributions of these two studies.…”

“…Similarly, Boadu 20 and Abubakar et al 22 revealed no statistically significant association between knowledge of SCD and marital status. Unlike our findings, Petrou et al 23 and Alkalbani et al 24 found that marital status was significantly associated with knowledge among their study participants. However, the populations employed by these studies were prospective couples and those married, which could account for the differences in the findings with regard to the current study.…”

Comprehension of premarital screening and genetic disorders among the population of Riyadh

“…The data were similar to those from studies in Qatar and Oman, where knowledge deficiencies have been observed regardless of understanding of the importance of PMC. 16 , 17 Our results are consistent with those from many previous studies conducted in specific populations in KSA. For instance, one study has reported that unmarried female university students had inadequate knowledge: less than one-third of participants knew which disorders are tested for.…”

Distribusi Pandangan Masyarakat Umum Terhadap Skrining Premarital Di Banyumas

“…Hal ini bisa disebabkan oleh beberapa faktor seperti ketidak tahuan responden terhadap teknologi yang dimaksud, sikap apriori indiividu untuk menolak hal baru, dan ketakutan terhadap kekeliruan atau kesalahan yang berdampak pada dosa. Faktor lain yang berpengaruh juga adalah ketidakinginan individu terhadap prosep masa depan mereka atau keturunan mereka terkait dengan penyakit genetic yang diderita (Alkalbani et al, 2022).…”