Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Oct;42(11):1368-1376.
doi: 10.1002/pd.6239. Epub 2022 Sep 18.

Preferences for a non-invasive prenatal test as first-line screening for Down Syndrome: A discrete choice experiment

Wen Shan Sim  1   2 , Seow Heong Yeo  1 , Christina Choi  2 , Tai Wai Yeo  3 , Jia Jia Lee  4 , Vinh Anh Huynh  4 , Eric Andrew Finkelstein  4   5 , Semra Ozdemir  4   6
Affiliations

Preferences for a non-invasive prenatal test as first-line screening for Down Syndrome: A discrete choice experiment

Wen Shan Sim et al. Prenat Diagn. 2022 Oct.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate preferences of pregnant women for the characteristics of prenatal testing, and to quantify their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) as first-line screening for Down Syndrome.

Method: A cross-sectional discrete choice experiment survey including five testing attributes was administered to 192 pregnant women (≤14 weeks' gestation) who were aged ≥21 years in Singapore. We calculated marginal WTP for improvements in testing characteristics and NIPT.

Results: We identified two groups of women with distinct preferences for prenatal testing. Women aged ≥35 years, with at least a university education, and with intention to terminate pregnancy of an affected fetus were more likely to be in the group with higher WTP for improvements in test characteristics. While participants valued increased detection rate and lower screen positive rate associated with NIPT, they also valued no risk of test failure and ability to test for birth defects using standard testing. The participants, on average, were not willing to pay for NIPT over the standard testing as a first-line screening test.

Conclusions: As a first-line screening, NIPT was not preferred over standard testing. The prenatal consultations should focus on each testing characteristic equally as our findings show diverse preferences for testing characteristics.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists S. Recommended ‘Best Practice’ Guidelines on Antenatal Screening for Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) and Other Fetal Aneuploidies; 2008.
    1. Sher C, Romano-Zelekha O, Green M, Shohat T. Utilization of prenatal genetic testing by Israeli Moslem women: a national survey. Clin Genet. 2004;65(4):278-283. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1399-0004.2004.00228.x
    1. Gil M, Giunta G, Macalli E, Poon L, Nicolaides K. UK NHS pilot study on cell-free DNA testing in screening for fetal trisomies: factors affecting uptake. Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol. 2015;45(1):67-73. https://doi.org/10.1002/uog.14683
    1. Tischler R, Hudgins L, Blumenfeld YJ, Greely HT, Ormond KE. Noninvasive prenatal diagnosis: pregnant women's interest and expected uptake. Prenat Diagn. 2011;31(13):1292-1299. https://doi.org/10.1002/pd.2888
    1. Lo T, Lai F, Leung W, et al. Screening options for Down syndrome: how women choose in real clinical setting. J Prenatal Diagnosis. 2009;29(9):852-856. https://doi.org/10.1002/pd.2292