Cognitive and Psychological Impact of BRCA Genetic Counseling in Before and After Definitive Surgery Breast Cancer Patients

Purpose To examine changes in cancer-related knowledge, distress, and decisional conflict from pre- to post-genetic counseling (GC) in before (BDS) and after (ADS) definitive surgery breast cancer (BC) patients. Methods Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics were collected at baseline; primary outcome data were collected before (T1) and after (T2) pretest GC. Within group changes for cancer-related knowledge, distress, and decisional conflict over genetic testing were compared by Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Results Of 103 BC patients, 87 were ADS and 16 were BDS. Analyses revealed that both groups reported significant increases in knowledge between T1 and T2 (median change 4.2, p = 0.004, and 2.7, p