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Who Benefits from Psychiatric Genetic Counseling

Who is a patient that may benefit from psychiatric genetic counseling?

Genetic counseling has not typically been provided for families and individuals with mental health problems.  However, knowledge about effect of genetic contributions and environmental factor on mental health problems is increasing.  There is evidence that genetic counseling can improve the outcomes of patients with psychiatric conditions(1,2,3,4).  In fact, studies have demonstrated that genetic counseling can reduce patients’ feelings of guilt and shame related to the mental health problems (2,5) in the family and patient empowerment and self-efficacy were significantly increased following genetic counseling(4). 

Therefore, any patient with a personal or family history of mental health problems such as, but not limited to bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression etc. may benefit from genetic counseling.  This does not replace any preexisting treatment plans, but may enhance them. 

  1.  Austin, J. C., & Honer, W. G. (2008). Psychiatric genetic counselling for parents of individuals affected with psychotic disorders: a pilot study. Early Intervention in Psychiatry, 2, 80–89
  2. Costain, G., Esplen, M. J., Toner, B., Hodgkinson, K. A., & Bassett, A. S. (2012). Evaluating genetic counseling for family members of individuals with schizophrenia in the molecular age. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 40, 88–99.
  3. Costain, G., Esplen, M. J., Toner, B., Scherer, S. W., Meschino, W. S., Hodgkinson, K. A., & Bassett, A. S. (2014). Evaluating genetic counseling for individuals with schizophrenia in the molecular age. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 40, 78–87
  4. Inglis, A., Koehn, D., McGillivray, B., Stewart, S. E., Austin, J. (2014). Evaluating a unique, specialist psychiatric genetic counseling clinic: uptake and impact. Clinical Genetics 1–7
  5. Costain G, Lionel AC, Merico D, Forsythe P, Russell K, Lowther C, Bassett AS (2013). Pathogenic rare copy number variants in community-based schizophrenia suggest a potential role for clinical microarray. Human Molecular Genetics, 22(22), 4485-4501.

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