Attitudes Towards Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing for Aneuploidy Among United States Adults of Reproductive Age

Objective(s)—To determine how adults in the United States (US) view non-invasive prenatal testing using cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA testing) in order to help estimate uptake. Study Design—A national sample of 1,861 US-based adults was surveyed using a validated online survey instrument. The survey was administered by a commercial survey research company. Respondents were randomized to receive a survey about prenatal testing for trisomy 13 and 18 or trisomy 21. Participants were asked to select among testing modalities, including cffDNA testing, and rank the features of testing that they considered most important to decision making. Results—There was substantive interest in the use of cffDNA testing rather than traditional screening mechanisms with a minority of respondents reporting that they would support the use of both methods in combination. The lower rates of false negative and false positive test results and the ability to use the test earlier in the pregnancy were the most highly rated benefits of cffDNA testing. Participants expressed strong support for diagnostic confirmation via invasive testing after a positive result from either screening or cffDNA testing. However, almost one-third of participants reported that they would not endorse the use of either invasive or non-invasive prenatal testing. Conclusion(s)—There appears to be support for uptake of non-invasive prenatal tests. Clinical guidelines should therefor go forward in providing guidance on how to integrate non-invasive Users may view, print, copy, and download text and data-mine the content in such documents, for the purposes of academic research, subject always to the full Conditions of use:http://www.nature.com/authors/editorial_policies/license.html#terms Correspondence to: Megan Allyse, [email protected]. Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. HHS Public Access Author manuscript J Perinatol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 April 16. Published in final edited form as: J Perinatol. 2014 June ; 34(6): 429–434. doi:10.1038/jp.2014.30. A uhor M anscript