Knowledge and attitude toward genetic counseling and testing among parents of children with genetic disorder in the West Bank/ Palestine

Genetic disorder is a health problem that is caused by a defect in the individual's DNA. In Palestine, there is no statistics about mortality rate of children who suffer from genetic disorders. Although, It, children, disorder is notacable that the new cases from the same family have been increased without any genetic counseling or prevention. Therefore, the study aim is to describe parents’ knowledge and attitudes toward genetic counseling and testing, and to determine if knowledge affects attitudes. A cross sectional study using a questionnaire to evaluate knowledge and likert scale to evaluate attitude was used in this study. The sample size was 121 participants who were attended the two referral hospitals in West Bank from February 2016 to September 2016. The study showed that there is a significant positive relationship between parents’ educational level and their knowledge regards genetic disorder (P value= 0.003). The most significant related risk factors for genetic disorder were ignoring premarital genetic testing for (99.2%); consanguineous marriage (71.1%); and family history of genetic problem for (55.4%).The study founded that most of parents of children with genetic problem had a good knowledge regards genetic disorder (63%).Whereas, the attitudes of these parents were positive for a majority of items that measure attitude level (81% for agreed answer). The relationship between knowledge and attitudes was positive and research hypothesis regards the effect of knowledge on attitude of parents had been accepted. This study recommended to increase awareness of parents about genetic testing; the important of premarital testing; and to avoid consanguinity. These are considered as a golden tool to decrease genetic problem in Palestine.