Pharmacogenetic Testing in Primary Care Practice: Opinions of Physicians, Pharmacists and Patients

Abstract

Aim: Although health authorities have set pharmacogenetic (PGx) markers on labels of hundreds of drugs, the use of PGx in clinical care remains infrequent. The adoption of PGx will depend on the opinions of physicians, pharmacists and patients. Materials & methods: Qualitative focus group interviews were performed with 23 physicians, 11 pharmacists and 30 patients. Results: Majority of the participants showed enthusiasm toward the implementation of PGx in clinics. Lack of knowledge on PGx, roles of healthcare providers, factors in favor and challenges of PGx implementation, ethical and insurance issues, educational and tools needs were the key themes that emerged from the interviews. Conclusion: Several barriers impede the uptake of PGx in clinics, however, opinions of physicians, pharmacists and patients are mostly favorable.

Keywords::

• acceptability
• implementation
• opinions
• patients
• pharmacists
• pharmacogenetics
• primary care physicians

Supplementary data

To view the supplementary data that accompany this paper please visit the journal website at: https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/suppl/10.2217/pgs-2019-0004

Author contributions

M-P Frigon has performed NVivo analyses and their interpretation and has written the manuscript. ME Blackburn has coconceived the study, supervised all focus group interviews and analyses, revised and approved the manuscript final version. C Dubois-Bouchard has planned and coordinated the participants’ recruitment, participated to the focus group interviews, performed the NVivo analyses and revised the manuscript. A-L Gagnon has participated to the manuscript handling, interpretation of the results and revised all versions. S Tardif has performed analyses validation and revised manuscript. K Tremblay has coconceived the study, participated to focus group interviews and interpretation of the results, revised all manuscript versions and approved the final version to be submitted.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Charles Caron, for his help with verbatim transcription and all participants who took part in this study. We also want to address a special thank to our respective research center that made possible the realization of this study. Authors MPF and ALG were supported by a scholarship grant from biocluster ECOGENE-21, a non-for-profit research organization.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) # 430-2016-01243. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The authors have obtained approval from the Cégep de Jonquière Institutional Ethic Review Board (CER2-11-2016-02). Informed written consent has been obtained from all participants involved in this study.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) # 430-2016-01243. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.