School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Genet Med. 2013 Feb;15(2):132-8. doi: 10.1038/gim.2012.111. Epub 2012 Aug 30.
Increased accessibility of direct-to-consumer personalized genetic reports raises the question: how are people affected by information about their own genetic predispositions?
Participants were led to believe that they had entered a study on the genetics of alcoholism and sleep disorders. Participants provided a saliva sample purportedly to be tested for the presence of relevant genes. While awaiting the results, they completed a questionnaire assessing their emotional state. They subsequently received a bogus report about their genetic susceptibility and completed a questionnaire about their emotional state and items assessing perceived control over drinking, relevant future drinking-related intentions, and intervention-related motivation and behavior.
Participants who were led to believe that they had a gene associated with alcoholism showed an increase in negative affect, decrease in positive affect, and reduced perceived personal control over drinking. Reported intentions for alcohol consumption in the near future were not affected; however, individuals were more likely to enroll in a "responsible drinking" workshop after learning of their alleged genetic susceptibility.
The first complete randomized experiment to examine the psychological and behavioral effects of receiving personalized genetic susceptibility information indicates some potential perils and benefits of direct-to-consumer genetic tests.
直接面向消费者的个性化基因报告的可及性增加引发了一个问题：人们如何受到有关自身遗传倾向信息的影响？
参与者被引导相信他们参加了一项关于酒精和睡眠障碍遗传学的研究。参与者提供唾液样本，据称是为了检测相关基因的存在。在等待结果的同时，他们完成了一份评估情绪状态的问卷。随后，他们收到了一份关于他们遗传易感性的虚假报告，并完成了一份关于他们情绪状态以及评估对饮酒的感知控制、相关未来饮酒相关意图、干预相关动机和行为的问卷。
被引导认为自己携带与酗酒相关基因的参与者表现出负性情绪增加、正性情绪减少以及对饮酒的感知个人控制能力下降。对近期饮酒的意图没有影响；然而，在得知自己据称的遗传易感性后，个体更有可能参加“负责任饮酒”研讨会。
这是第一个全面的随机实验，旨在研究接受个性化遗传易感性信息的心理和行为影响，表明直接面向消费者的基因测试存在一些潜在的风险和益处。
