Awareness of prenatal screening for fetal aneuploidy among pregnant women in Greece.

Aim: To estimate the level of awareness of prenatal screening (PS) and explore the underlying demographic, lifestyle and medical history parameters of Greek and non-Greek pregnant women undergoing prenatal diagnosis.
Patients and Methods: A structured questionnaire was answered by 354 women at the time of receiving the results of invasive prenatal testing. Summary statistics and multiple logistic regression analyses were performed.
Results: Adequate knowledge of the effectiveness of PS tests was reported by 50.8% of women. Popular press reading was associated with more than 2-fold higher level of awareness [odds ratio (OR)=0.51, p=0.0004]. Inadequate awareness was recorded among pregnant women of non-Greek nationality (OR=2.07, p=0.04), as well as among those also unaware of the effects of smoking during pregnancy (OR=2.39, p=0.004).
Conclusion: Pre-gestational prenatal counseling is essential in order to improve knowledge and attitudes of women towards PS and reduce the health gap between different cultural and social groups.
(Copyright © 2015 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. John G. Delinassios), All rights reserved.)