Knowledge and attitudes regarding non‐invasive prenatal testing among women in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Objectives To explore women's knowledge and attitudes regarding NIPT, its implications, the factors affecting their decision to undergo the test and actions taken following a positive result. Methods In this descriptive study, women who were offered NIPT through the foetal maternal clinic, were asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire about NIPT. The questionnaire consisted of 29 statements and covered four areas: demographics, knowledge, attitudes and decision‐making. Results A total of 150 women who were offered NIPT participated in this study. The results showed that generally women had poor knowledge of critical aspects of NIPT. This included the conditions tested for, the implications of the test and its limitations. Over 90% of women were in favour of NIPT and it being offered to all women of advanced maternal age while 66% of the tested women agreed to having confirmatory invasive testing in the case of a positive result. Conclusion This study shows that the acceptance rate for NIPT is high despite incomplete understanding of the benefits and limitations of the test. The study findings support the need for education regarding this test through dedicated genetic counselling sessions in order to ensure that an informed decision can be made.

Clinical application of expanded noninvasive prenatal testing for fetal chromosome abnormalities in a cohort of 39,580 pregnancies

“…Nowadays, as more and more women are willing to choose NIPT‐plus (Bawazeer et al, 2021), it has been rapidly used for screening common fetal chromosomal aneuploidies and may gradually become one of the first‐trimester tests. NIPT‐plus is based on deeper sequencing and higher level analyses than traditional NIPT, and through data analysis algorithms NIPT‐plus is expected to find genome‐wide copy‐number variations (CNVs) associated with MMS.…”

False-positives and false-negatives in non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT): what can we learn from a meta-analyses on > 750,000 tests?

“…This is only rarely systematically studied, but at least an influence of social class and education level on NIPT perception was shown in an US-study [29]. Another study done in Saudi Arabia showed that "the acceptance rate for NIPT is high, despite incomplete understanding of the benefits and limitations of the test" [30]; and similar results were obtained for pregnant women from China [31]. Bowman-Smart et al [32] report for 34% of Australian women, interviewed after they gave birth to their child did not feel sufficiently informed of what the consequences of a positive NIPT result would have been.…”

The Special Features of Prenatal and Preimplantation Genetic Counseling in Arab Countries

“…The implementation of services in those countries is probably due to the financial means of those countries, high consanguinity rates driving a high incidence of some genetic diseases, as well as the availability of genetic counselors [ 11 , 17 , 18 ]. Other Arab countries have demonstrated a need for genetic counseling services; however, they face significant barriers to implementation of said services due to poor healthcare infrastructure, a lack of resources and shortage of genetic counselors, the high cost of genetic testing, poor public knowledge about the risk of genetic diseases, and limited access to healthcare services [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. These disparities have led to variability in the type and quality of provided genetic services in different countries [ 23 ].…”