UC Irvine

Genetic counseling is a field of healthcare that emphasizes a non-directive approach to client empowerment. In countries like India, it is often left to the practitioners to decide what is best for the client, and this is culturally accepted as a standard of care. Hence it would not be unusual if clients expressed dissatisfaction with genetic counseling due to the approach. This study aims to investigate the potential differences in client satisfaction and expectations from receiving genetic counseling from providers in two countries, U.S.A and India, which have a different professional status for genetic counseling. We hypothesized that clients in both countries were satisfied with the genetic counseling service, and satisfaction was related to expectations being met. We found that satisfaction with genetic counseling is indeed related to expectations being met. In addition, more respondents from India expressed that they expected only risk analysis, whereas more respondents from USA expected the session to include discussions as well. However, satisfaction did not differ significantly based on country. Exploring differences in client expectations and satisfaction is a valuable tool in increasing cultural competency and provides the framework for future studies.