ADOLESCENTS OPINIONS ABOUT GENETIC RISK INFORMATION, PRENATAL-DIAGNOSIS, AND PREGNANCY TERMINATION

Advances in genetics create increasing possibilities of diagnosing and preventing genetic disease. In most countries, the community is poorl y informed about the role of genetic factors in human disease and abou t genetic testing and its social, emotional, and ethical implications. School education about genetics may improve this situation. Students are, of course, the adults of the future and the potential users of th e new genetic tests. To gain further insight into the perception of ge netic risk of adolescents and their perception of the new genetic tech niques and as a starting point for setting up an adequate information campaign in Flanders, we assessed the opinions and beliefs of students with regard to health, genetic diseases, genetic risk, and genetic te sting. A standardised interview and questionnaire were administered wi thin the scope of the two yearly medical check up of 166 fifth grade s tudents. They were randomly selected from the group of all fifth grade high school students in seven different schools. This paper focuses o n the attitudes of adolescents towards obtaining genetic information, towards prenatal diagnosis and pregnancy termination. Adolescents in F landers are interested in being informed about genetic risks and genet ic diseases and in making use of prenatal diagnosis because they want to make informed reproductive decisions in the future and to be emotio nally prepared for the birth of an affected child. They adopt a critic al attitude towards pregnancy termination. The association between the se attitudes and several relevant factors was investigated. This showe d significant correlations between some attitudes and general health r elated prevention, perceived burden of genetic diseases, the importanc e of the value ''own health'', the perceived role of society, and the regularity of religious practice, Some points for special attention we re formulated with regard to information campaigns for adolescents.