ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the perception and the opinions of adolescents about genetic risk and genetic testing in Flanders. They are indeed the adults and parents of the future and the potential users of the new genetic tests. Genetic disease clearly has negative connotations. Underestimation of the genetic risk also occurs much more often than overestimation. Moreover, adolescents have the feeling that their own risk is lower than the risk of a random couple. Before pregnancy, slightly more than half of the adolescents would ask a doctor for information about an increased risk, one third to make informed reproductive decisions and one fifth to be better emotionally prepared for the birth of an affected child. The chapter illustrates how important it is to have a view on the spontaneous beliefs and the knowledge of adolescents as the starting point of an educational campaign that is seen as very important, as well by professionals in genetic centres as by patient organisations.
