Understanding pregnant women's decision making concerning prenatal screening.

OBJECTIVE

This study is aimed at enhancing understanding prenatal screening decision making through testing a hypothesized decision model based on decision theory and health behavior theory.

DESIGN

We obtained questionnaires from 1,666 pregnant women who were offered prenatal screening for Down's syndrome. Path analysis (using LISREL) resulted in a final model with reasonable model fit, which was verified by split-sample cross-validation.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

These included perceived probability, perceived severity, attitude toward termination, response efficacy, attitude toward prenatal screening, subjective norm, child-related anxiety, and intention to undergo prenatal screening.

RESULTS

Attitude toward termination of pregnancy, perceived test efficacy, and subjective norm regarding the desirability of having prenatal screening determined a woman's attitude toward having a prenatal test. Anxiety was influenced by perceived risk and perceived severity of having a child with Down's syndrome, and by subjective norm, but this appeared to be a weak predictor of intention to test. Pregnant women with a positive attitude toward prenatal screening, and who perceived a subjective norm in favor of undergoing prenatal screening, showed a greater intention to have prenatal screening done.

CONCLUSION

These findings suggest that more attention should be paid toward the values and social context of pregnant women during the counseling process.