Genetic Literacy of Pregnant Individuals and Affecting Factors: A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study.

AIM: The World Health Organization has highlighted the prevalence of congenital anomalies or genetic diseases in 2%–5% of all live births and recommended prenatal genetic screening during pregnancy. Understanding the prenatal screening and diagnostic tests performed during pregnancy is crucial to making informed decisions. This study aimed to investigate the genetic literacy of pregnant individuals and the affecting factors. METHODS: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted with 260 pregnant individuals. Research data were collected using the "Individual Introduction Form" and the "Genetic Literacy and Comprehension (GLAC) Measure" to assess the participants' understanding of genetic concepts. A p value <.05 is considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Participants' GLAC mean knowledge scores were found to be 5.30 ± 1.38. Participants were mostly familiar with the abnormality term (6.01 ± 1.57) and least familiar with the sporadic (1.83 ± 1.49) and variation (3.33 ± 1.98) terms. "A genetic disease that occurs without a family history is considered sporadic," was the less-known question by the participants. There was a statistically significant difference between employment, parity, and GLAC familiarity scale scores (p <.001). A statistically significant difference was found between educational level and GLAC familiarity and knowledge scale scores (p <.001). CONCLUSIONS: We found that pregnant individuals have knowledge deficits regarding genetic terms, and some socioeconomic factors affected their genetic literacy levels. Further studies are needed to understand the effect of genetic literacy levels on pregnant individuals' understanding of genetic information regarding prenatal genetic tests.