Providing Appropriate Genetic Information to Healthy Carriers of Hemoglobinopathy Can Be a Welcome and Safe Initiative: The Latium Example

Aims: To register the opinions and feelings of (presumed) unaware healthy hemoglobinopathy carriers, receiving information on their carrier status. Methods: We collected 259 interviews from the parents of secondary school students, after their children had been provisionally diagnosed as hemoglobinopathy carriers during the routine school screening campaign imbedded in the public health care program of the Latium region (Central Italy). After screening of the children, all parents received a standard reassuring letter informing them about the presumed healthy carrier status of their children and were invited for a confirmation of the trait and for an additional explanation if needed. Results: We have analyzed 219 interviews (84.5%) from indigenous subjects and 40 from allochthonous people (15.5%) being either recent immigrants or mixed couples. The average age of the parents was 45.5 years. Only 51 (19.7%) had previous knowledge of their carrier status, while the rest were unaware. When reading the letter with the provisional diagnostic result of their child, emotions that could be considered undesirable were present in about 60% of the cases. Nevertheless, the information was experienced as welcome, clear, and useful by 100% of the participants. When asked about the option of prenatal diagnosis (PD) in case of genetic risk, 85.7% and 87.5% of the autochthonous and allochthonous interviewed declared either to be in favor or to eventually consider PD, while only 14.3% and 12.5% would not consider it for various reasons. Discussion: During our study, we registered undesirable feelings as well as welcome reactions: the first being experienced during the very first reading of the letter and the second after reflection on and understanding of the content during the visit to the center later on. Significantly, satisfaction and understanding of the advantage of knowledge was registered in 100% of the cases during our enquiry.