Assessing the general public’s view of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing and their interpretation of DTC website disclaimer messages

The general public continues to show increased interest and uptake of Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) genetic testing. We conducted an online survey ( N = 405) to assess genetics knowledge, interest, and outcome expectancy of DTC genetic testing before and after exposure to a sample DTC disclaimer message. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the relationship between previous genetic knowledge, attitudes and self-reported systematic processing of a sample DTC disclaimer message, outcome expectancies, and interest to pursue DTC genetic testing. Increased genetic knowledge and more positive attitudes towards DTC genetic testing were associated with increased self-reported systematic processing of the DTC disclaimer message. Further, self-reported systematic processing of the DTC disclaimer message was associated with greater interest in pursuing DTC genetic testing but did not predict outcome expectancies. As DTC genetic testing continues to gain in popularity and usage, additional research is imperative to better understand participants’ motivations and processing of the DTC disclaimer messages to improve the user experience.