Counselling for prenatal anomaly screening-A plea for integration of existential life questions

PATIENT EDUCATION AND COUNSELING

卷:103

Editorial Material

Prinds, Christina^1,2  Gitsels-van der Wal, Janneke¹  Crombag, Neeltje⁴  Martin, Linda³ 

[1] Univ Southern Denmark, Inst Clin Res, Odense C, Denmark

[2] Univ Coll South Denmark, Haderslev, Denmark

[3] Vrije Univ Amsterdam, Amsterdam UMC, Midwifery Sci, AVAG,Amsterdam Publ Hlth Res Inst, De Boelelaan 1117, Amsterdam, Netherlands

[4] Univ Leuven, Dept Dev & Regenerat, Biomed Sci, Leuven, Belgium

关键词: Existential;    Life questions;    Prenatal;    Screening;    Counsellor;    Decision-making;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.pec.2020.03.025

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

The availability in many countries of new prenatal anomaly screening methods, such as the non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT), and the potential broadening of testing for genetic conditions, creates an ongoing debate about the accompanying existential dilemmas at both societal level and for individual new parents. In many countries, the main goal of counselling for prenatal anomaly screening is to facilitate the reproductive decision -making process of future parents. Therefore, counsellors share information to enable a woman and her partner to think about the pros and cons of participating in screening, try to clarify possible moral dilemmas, and dwell on existential life questions. In line with the CanMEDS framework, healthcare professionals must combine the role of communicator (providing health education ) with that of professional (by recognising and responding to existential life questions while facilitating decision -making ). This is not easy but it is essential for providing balanced counselling. At present, counselling tends to be suf ficient regarding health education , whereas guidance in decision - making , including attention for existential life questions and philosophy of life, offers room for improvement. In this paper, we suggest slowing down and turning the traditional prenatal counselling encounter upside down by starting as a counselling professional instead of a healthcare information sharing communicator and thus making the story of the woman and her partner, within their societal context, the starting point and the basis of the counselling encounter. (c) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free