Asadollahi Hamid, Vakili Mahmoud, Asadollahi Reza
School of Medicine, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran.
Department of Community Medicine, School of Medicine, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran.
J Community Genet. 2020 Jul;11(3):367-375. doi: 10.1007/s12687-020-00455-7. Epub 2020 Feb 28.
Public knowledge of medical genetics is essential for better establishment of its services but has been rarely evaluated based on distinguished types of knowledge. We designed and validated a new self-administered questionnaire in Farsi (Persian language) to assess public knowledge of medical genetics based on Rogers' framework. This framework divides knowledge into three types of awareness, how-to (practical) and principles knowledge which refer to knowing the existence, proper use, and theoretical principles of an innovation, respectively. We asked consecutive individuals (n = 306, age ≥ 20 years) visiting health centers in different regions of Yazd, a city in central Iran, to fill out the questionnaire. After validation, we analyzed 280 of the questionnaires which revealed a high degree of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha 0.90) and a positive linear relationship among the scores of different knowledge. Our respondents had relatively fair awareness and how-to, but generally poor principles knowledge with statistically significantly better scores in females and those with higher education. We observed tangible strengths in topics such as consanguineous marriage, thalassemia, and hereditary predisposition to diabetes and cardiovascular disorders, and weaknesses in areas such as genetic testing and genetics of cancer. Notably, experience of premarital genetic counseling did not show any significant effect, but having a relative with a genetic disorder was significantly linked to better awareness scores. Our study provides a reliable and self-administered questionnaire for the assessment of public knowledge of medical genetics. Despite revealing important strengths and weaknesses in our population sample, larger scale evaluations in Iran and other developing countries are needed for better understanding of the public knowledge as the prerequisite for designing appropriate educational programs.
医学遗传学的公众知识对于更好地建立其服务至关重要，但很少基于不同类型的知识进行评估。我们设计并验证了一份新的波斯语自填式问卷，以根据罗杰斯的框架评估医学遗传学的公众知识。该框架将知识分为三种类型：知晓、操作方法（实践）和原理知识，分别指了解一项创新的存在、正确使用和理论原理。我们要求连续访问伊朗中部城市亚兹德不同地区健康中心的个体（n = 306，年龄≥20岁）填写问卷。验证后，我们分析了280份问卷，结果显示内部一致性程度较高（克朗巴哈系数0.90），不同知识得分之间呈正线性关系。我们的受访者在知晓和操作方法方面得分相对尚可，但总体上原理知识较差，女性和受过高等教育者的得分在统计学上显著更高。我们观察到在近亲结婚、地中海贫血以及糖尿病和心血管疾病的遗传易感性等主题方面有明显优势，而在基因检测和癌症遗传学等领域存在劣势。值得注意的是，婚前遗传咨询经历未显示出任何显著影响，但有亲属患有遗传疾病与更高的知晓得分显著相关。我们的研究提供了一份可靠的自填式问卷，用于评估医学遗传学的公众知识。尽管揭示了我们人群样本中的重要优势和劣势，但仍需要在伊朗和其他发展中国家进行更大规模的评估，以便更好地了解公众知识，作为设计适当教育项目的前提条件。
