Abstract

Background: Premarital screening (PMS) has a crucial role in the prediction of genetic disorders in children and the early detection of sexually transmitted diseases worldwide. This study aimed to evaluate the level of knowledge and attitude of the general population in Saudi Arabia toward the National PMS and Genetic Counseling Program and the affecting factors.
Methodology: A cross-sectional, observational study was conducted using a self-administered designed questionnaire that was disseminated online through Google Forms. All Saudi citizens and residents in all regions of Saudi Arabia who were older than 18 years of age were considered eligible to participate. The IBM Statistical Package for the Social Science (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY) was used to perform all statistical calculations, version 21 for Microsoft Windows.
Results: A total of 815 participants responded to the questionnaire and were included in the analysis. Factors found to influence the level of knowledge of participants significantly included the level of education (p < 0.001), occupation (p < 0.001), monthly income (p = 0.002), and being examined previously (p = 0.014).
Conclusion: Knowledge and attitude of the Saudi population toward PMS and genetic counseling need to be improved through national awareness programs. Further studies are required to investigate the importance of including other genetic screening tests in the premarital examination. Furthermore, we highly recommend paying more attention toward the neonatal screening program through the continuous evaluation and improvement of its efficiency and raiding the public awareness about its importance.

Key words: Premarital screening, genetic counseling, consanguinity, consanguineous couples, Saudi Arabia