Information Avoidance, Self-affirmation, and Intentions to Receive Genomic Sequencing Results Among Members of an African Descent Cohort

Background Information avoidance tendencies have been found to be associated with lower intentions to pursue medically actionable genomic sequencing results, but less so among individuals who engage more in spontaneous self-affirmation. Yet these results were obtained with a largely non-Hispanic White, high-SES cohort. Purpose To assess these variables, their magnitude, and their associations in an African-descent cohort as part of the same ClinSeq® exome sequencing program. Methods Participants reported levels of spontaneous self-affirmation, information avoidance, and intentions to receive three types of results – medically actionable, non-medically actionable, and carrier status as part of a baseline survey. Results Relative to the original, non-Hispanic White cohort, those in the African-descent cohort had higher levels of spontaneous self-affirmation and lower intentions of learning about carrier genomic results; they reported comparable levels of information avoidance and intentions to receive other results. Information avoidance was negatively associated with intention to receive non-actionable results in the African-descent cohort, as found in the initial cohort, with no moderating effect of spontaneous self-affirmation. Information avoidance, spontaneous self-affirmation, and their interaction were not associated with intentions to receive actionable results (contrary to findings in the initial cohort), or carrier results. Conclusions Individuals of African descent may engage in relatively more spontaneous self-affirmation, and do not appear to engage in more information avoidance. Their information avoidance tendencies were associated with pursuit of non-actionable sequencing results, with no moderating effect of self-affirmation, and were not associated with pursuit of actionable results or carrier results.