Perception towards newborn screening

Abstract

Background: Newborn screening (NBS) to identify various disorders has been running successfully across the world. But the public in many developing countries do not have access to this program. Aims: To assess the awareness of NBS in patients and clinicians. Patients and Methods: We assessed the awareness of NBS by oral questionnaire. Results: We found that, in the community the awareness regarding NBS was low [47.2%] and the knowledge of the availability of the test was less both in the community [65%] and amongst clinicians [11/28]. But all the subjects opined that the tests will have a high rate of acceptance if they are offered free of cost. Conclusions: The awareness regarding NBS is low but has potential for acceptance.

Keywords

• inborn errors of metabolism
• neonatal screening
• newborn screening