Predictive testing for Huntington's disease: a challenge for persons at risk and for professionals.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 9832893.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
About a decade ago the introduction of predictive testing for Huntington's disease (HD) was an important milestone in medical history. The aim of the present paper concerning predictive DNA-testing for HD is fourfold. First of all it describes the professional challenge of elaborating an adequate test protocol and of permanently using a multidisciplinary approach to deal with predictive test requests. Secondly the paper is aimed at unraveling the factors that play a part in uptake and decision making regarding predictive testing. Hereby the Health Belief Model is used as a framework for understanding differences between tested and untested persons. Thirdly the impact of the test result on psychological well-being is reviewed. Finally this paper assesses the utilisation of prenatal diagnosis after predictive testing for HD and reflects on the psychological and ethical implications of different types of prenatal tests, including preimplantation genetic diagnosis.