A number of empirical studies have attempted to do exactly that, examining what patients, families, and clinicians know and think about genetic testing in psychiatry. However these studies are scattered across different literatures, each study considering a limited number of questions and usually targeting a particular, often unique population. The present review is an attempt to synthesize these many reports to sketch a composite view of attitudes and beliefs regarding genetic testing in psychiatry, and to assess the implications of the data. We focus in particular on lay interest in genetic testing, psychiatrists’ attitudes, beliefs about the benefits and risks of testing, attitudes towards prenatal testing and testing of children and adolescents, anticipated response to genetic testing, and views of direct-to-consumer testing for psychiatric disorders.
