Journal
JOURNAL OF RISK RESEARCH
Volume 21, Issue 2, Pages 259-267Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/13669877.2017.1281333
Keywords
genetic risk; risk perception; interpretative phenomenological analysis; hermeneutic phenomenology
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Funding
- Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences part of the 'Mind the Risk' project [M13-0260:1]
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The prevailing scientific approach to genetic risk information centres around communication of risk in terms of numerical probabilities. However, it is well known that individuals have difficulties in understanding and making sense of this information in their own lives. There is, accordingly, a need to investigate whether any methodologies in psychological research may shed light on how individuals perceive genetic risk information within their specific contexts of family history, personal relationships, lifestyles and future plans. To explore whether hermeneutic phenomenology and methodology may offer a deeper understanding of an individual's perception of having a hereditary predisposition, we conducted a literature search. We found that Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis may be a fruitful approach to an individual's lived experiential world. The studies analysed showed how individuals interpret information about genetic risk in the light of their own beliefs about the multiple causes of illness, patterns of heredity and observable risk factors in their families. People's understanding of their experience is derived from an intricate interconnectedness with others that arises in the context of a world shaped in equal measure by language and culture, on the one hand, and bodies and objects on the other.
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