Awareness and Use of Maternal Serum Screening Among Women From the St. John’s Region of Newfoundland and Labrador

Abstract

To examine the awareness and use of maternal serum screening (MSS) among women from the St. John's region of Newfoundland and Labrador. We surveyed 300 women who had recently given birth. Our main outcomes were whether the woman had heard of MSS (prior to the study) and whether she had MSS during her pregnancy. Among the 200 respondents (response rate 66.7%), 139 (69.5%) had heard of MSS and 53 (26.5%) had MSS (38.1% of those who had heard of it). A larger proportion of women over 35 years (59.0%) had heard of MSS than younger women (31.5%) (P = 0.001). Among those who had heard of MSS, a larger proportion of women who had MSS (96.2%) than those who did not have MSS (72.1%) discussed the test with their physician (P 0.001); 54.9% of the women who discussed MSS with their physicians decided not to have MSS. Most discussions regarding MSS (82.6%) lasted 10 minutes or less; discussion length was not related to use of MSS. Almost two thirds of women surveyed were aware of MSS, and roughly one quarter had MSS. These findings confirm that most physicians offer MSS to their patients and suggest that patient preference accounts for the low use of MSS in the province. Understanding why women do not have MSS may lead to strategies to improve screening rates.