Although psychiatrists do not question the importance of genetics in psychiatry (87% routinely take detailed family histories) (Finn et al., 2005), many seem unconvinced that genetic testing will have an impact on the field (Mitchell et al., 2010). Indeed, 42% of psychiatrists in Hoop et al.’s (2008a) study believed the development of genetic tests would have little effect on how most psychiatrists practice, and 14% believed the development of such tests would be irrelevant to their own work. Only half of psychiatrists (44%–53%) thought it would be “extremely useful” to have tests that would determine: 1) a patient’s optimum dose of many psychiatric medications; 2) whether a patient is at high risk of serious side effects from a psychiatric medication; 3) whether a patient with mental illness is likely to have a severe course; or 4) whether an asymptomatic person is at high risk of developing a mental illness in the future (Hoop et al., 2008a). Of interest, psychiatrists with recent genetic training were less likely to believe these tests would be useful. These beliefs, coupled with gaps in psychiatrists’
