Abstract

This study explored healthcare professionals’ attitudes toward counselling patients on disclosing genetic cancer risk to relatives. Genetic counselling practices in Sweden are undergoing significant changes due to the increased use of genetic testing to assess hereditary risk and the implementation of mainstreamed testing in oncology care. These developments require an assessment of healthcare professionals’ perceived roles and responsibilities when working with patients with hereditary risk. Best practices need to be developed to effectively support risk disclosure, and subsequently risk management, to relatives. Data was collected through interviews with oncologists, gynaecologists, surgeons, clinical geneticists, and genetic counsellors, working in oncology care or at cancer genetics units. Data was analysed using reflective thematic analysis. The results are presented as four positions that healthcare professionals take, describing their attitudes towards counselling patients about risk disclosure to relatives. The position depends on whether they perceive healthcare or the patient as ultimately responsible for risk information reaching relatives, and whether their focus is on the patient or the at-risk relatives. There are several stakeholders involved, and hence 'characters in play'. These results could serve as a basis for discussions on roles and responsibilities, while developing best practices regarding genetic counselling on hereditary cancer risk communication. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10689-025-00516-1.

Keywords

Computer scienceArtificial intelligencePerceptionFacial recognition systemFace perceptionFace (sociological concept)Coding (social sciences)Pattern recognition (psychology)PsychologyCognitive psychologyMathematicsLinguistics

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Publication Info

Year
1998
Type
book-chapter
Pages
51-72
Citations
45
Access
Closed

Social Impact

Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions

Citation Metrics

45
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2
Influential
22
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Cite This

Vicki Bruce, Peter Hancock, A. Mike Burton (1998). Human Face Perception and Identification. Face Recognition , 51-72. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-72201-1_3

Identifiers

DOI
10.1007/978-3-642-72201-1_3
PMID
41385151
PMCID
PMC12700921

Data Quality

Data completeness: 77%