Participation in maternal serum screening following screen positive results in a previous pregnancy

Objective-To determine whether women who have had a positive serum screenin g result in one pregnancy have a lower rate of participation in screening i n their next pregnancy. Setting-The Women and Infants Hospital triple marker screening programme. Methods-Pregnancy and screening information was collected from laboratory a nd hospital databases to compare subsequent screening participation in wome n who were screen negative and screen positive for risk of Down's syndrome (DS) or neural tube defect (NTD) pregnancy. Results-In an age matched comparison, 108 women who had a previous screen p ositive result were significantly less likely than 108 women who were scree n negative to participate in maternal serum screening in their next pregnan cy. When examined according to type of screen positive result, the effect w as significant for both those who were screen positive for DS and those who were screen positive for NTD. The degree of risk in screen positive women did not significantly affect their uptake of screening in the next pregnanc y. Conclusions-Anxiety related to a screen positive result probably causes dec reased participation in maternal serum screening in the next pregnancy. Red ucing the screen positive rate in prenatal serum screening would alleviate maternal anxiety and would probably lead to more stable participation.