Our study results suggest that the participants generally had a positive orientation towards genetic research of psychiatric disorders. However, the findings need to be interpreted cautiously in light of the fact that more than half of the sample had had previous experience participating in health research studies. This could have created a biased sample in terms of the participants’ general attitudes towards medical research. The study selection rate was 36%, due to our specific selection criteria. While this enabled us to track people’s willingness to enter into ongoing genetic studies, the limited sample size did not permit us to make comparisons between Blacks and Whites, and those with and without a history of mental illness. However, we observed that the top two to three themes in the topic areas were all expressed by both Black and White participants, as well as those with and without a reported history of mental illness. As can be the case in focus group settings, it is possible that certain participants felt less sure of their opinions and thus did not voice them, or perhaps
