Awareness and acceptance of premarital genotype screening among youths in a Nigerian community

Abstract

Genetic diseases like sickle cell disease is more prevalent in developing countries like Nigeria. Premarital genetic screening could help in its prevention. Awareness and acceptance of pre-marital genetic screening is not well documented in Plateau State. The aim of this study was to determine the level of awareness and acceptance of pre-marital genetic screening a Nigerian community. A descriptive design was adopted for the study and 150 youths voluntarily completed a pilot-tested questionnaire. Findings indicated that 50.7% are aware of premarital genotype screening and 52.7% of the respondents have been screened for their genotype. The majority of the respondents (77.3%) accepted to go for premarital genotype screening. The relationship between aware and acceptance of premarital genotype screening is statistically significant. It was concluded that although awareness and acceptance of pre-marital screening was reasonable more need to be done to increases public awareness.