Introduction: Recent developments in genetics and genomics have brought new possibilities for diagnostics, treatment and prevention of disease, but genetic testing, as a basis of these clinical activities, has also emerged as a commercial service, offered directly to the consumer. These are usually web-based services that generally do not meet the standards of genetic testing in clinical settings.
Purpose: The purpose was to identify the challenges that commercial genetic and genomic testing represents for nursing.
Methods: We conducted a literature review. The search terms used to identify studies were direct-to-consumer, nursing, genetic counselling and their synonyms. As a result of searching in PubMed / Medline, CINAHL Ultimate, ScienceDirect and Cochrane Library, 12 papers were identified. Their evidence strength was evaluated using an eight-level scale.
Results: Four main themes were identified: awareness and competence of health professionals about direct-to-consumer genetic testing, informing the nurses about the topic through scientific and professional papers, discussions about nurses' competencies in relation to commercial testing and concerns about the lack of regulation of these kinds of services.
Discussion and conclusion: There is an extremely small amount of empirical research and scientific literature in the field of direct-to-consumer genetic testing in relation to nursing. Nevertheless, it is clear from the analysis of the literature that dealing with commercial genomic testing will require nurses with adequate education, which will also be necessary in the era of genomic medicine. We propose research with validated questionnaires, the creation of prototype teaching content about commercial testing for nurses and a Delphi method for identification of expert opinions of the importance of educating various segments of the public about the issue of commercial genetic and genomic testing.
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