Nowadays several familial cancer syndromes that confer a high lifetime risk of cancer can be identified with genetic testing. The psychological impact of genetic testing and the rates of psychological distress in patients undergoing genetic testing vary between 6 to 65% depending on socio-demographic or clinical characteristics.
The effect of baseline distress on post-testing assessments tended to decrease or show little change over time, it may be important to target patients with high baseline distress for additional counseling or intervention both pre-testing and over time.The most robust predictor of future distress is baseline distress, additional factors were associated with cancer risk perception considering family history of cancer, patient's affected or unaffected with cancer, etc...
It is relevant to developing and providing care for these patients, it has been demonstrated that enhanced genetic counseling with clinical psychologist to facilitate decision-making process, managing family concerns promoting their communication with and involvement of family members, and attending their emotional distress, can be beneficial. Also, cancer genetic counseling may promote patient use of personal resources and enhance patient health literacy about their syndrome.
