Effect of Genetic Testing for Mental Disorders on Married Couple and Their Reproductive Decisions

The study aimed to explore the awareness on the genetic susceptibility to psychiatric disorders and investigated their attitudes toward seeking help from genetic testing for psychiatric disorders before marriage and making reproductive decisions. In this study, there were 200 respondents consisted of 15.5% of men and 84.5 of women from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia who identified as being married or engaged. Most respondents were aged between 22 years old and 39 years old and all had different educational backgrounds. A questionnaire was developed based on previous literatures to measure the respondents’ attitude toward genetic testing for mental disorders. The questionnaire contained 13 questions that assessed respondents’ knowledge about mental illnesses and genetics, interest in genetic testing for mental disorders and attitudes towards the test regarded marital and reproductive decisions. The data was analyzed with SPSS program. The result showed the attitudes toward genetic testing for mental disorders among individuals from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.