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Clinical Trial
. 2025 Sep;34(9):e70261.
doi: 10.1002/pon.70261.

'How Did That Make You Feel?' Latinas' Use of Genetic Counseling and Testing for Hereditary Cancer Risk After Watching a Culturally Targeted Video and Receiving Patient Navigation

Sara Gómez-Trillos  1   2   3 , Pilar Carrera  4 , Amparo Caballero  4 , Vanessa B Sheppard  5 , Kristi D Graves  1   2 , Beth N Peshkin  1   2 , Marc D Schwartz  1   2 , Claudia Campos  6 , Nathaly Garcés  7 , Alejandra Hurtado de Mendoza  1   2
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

'How Did That Make You Feel?' Latinas' Use of Genetic Counseling and Testing for Hereditary Cancer Risk After Watching a Culturally Targeted Video and Receiving Patient Navigation

Sara Gómez-Trillos et al. Psychooncology. 2025 Sep.

Abstract

Objective: Culturally targeted narrative education is a promising approach to cancer prevention and control. This study evaluates the uptake of genetic counseling and testing (GCT) in Latinas at risk for hereditary breast and ovarian cancers (HBOC) after watching a culturally targeted narrative video and being navigated to GCT services.

Methods: Latina women at increased risk for HBOC were recruited through community-based organizations. Participants responded to surveys before and after watching Spanish-language telenovela-style video. Surveys measured sociodemographic and clinical variables, HBOC and GCT knowledge, transportation with the story, identification with characters, and emotions elicited by the video. After watching video, participants were offered patient navigation services to free or low-cost GCT and completed a 3-month follow-up phone survey to assess GCT uptake.

Results: Participants (N = 40) were 47.35 years old on average (SD = 9.48); all were born outside the United States. At the 3-month follow-up (N = 37), 27 (72.9%) and 26 (70.27%) participants had attended genetic counseling and genetic testing, respectively. U Mann Whitney tests found statistically significant differences between women who attended counseling versus those who did not at baseline knowledge (U = 216.00, p = 0.000) and distress elicited by the video (U = 73.5, p = 0.03). A logistic regression with distress elicited by the video as a predictive variable reached statististical significance (β = -0.27, p = 0.037, CI 95% 0.58-0.98).

Conclusions: GCT uptake was promising, supporting a role for culturally targeted narrative video education along with a patient navigation component in increasing interest in cancer prevention and reducing healthcare disparities in HBOC genetic services.

Trial registration: NCT03075540 (Initial release 2/22/2017).

Keywords: Hispanic or Latino; cancer; emotions; genetic counseling; health communication; health education; hereditary breast or ovarian cancer syndrome; oncology.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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