Wetherill, Leah

AbstractGenetic counselors have skills and expertise in genetics and patient care that make them an asset to research and research teams. However, the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) found in 2020 that more than half of practicing genetic counselors do not participate in research activities. Information describing factors that influence their research participation is lacking in the literature. This study ascertained genetic counselors' workplace and graduate training experiences to provide insight into factors that increase or decrease participation in research activities. A survey was distributed through the NSGC Student Research Survey Program. Practicing genetic counselors that graduated in or before 2020 were eligible to participate. The survey included questions about demographics, implementation of student research projects, research‐specific resources in their graduate programs, perceived barriers and motivations, and current research activities. Interestingly, the majority of respondents participated in research activities between 2017 and 2021; the most common activities included: recognizing a gap(s) in knowledge (68%) and presenting an abstract or poster (64%). Factors that most significantly influenced genetic counselors' research participation included their interest in research (p = 0.0037), their motivation to do research (p = 0.0014), and their perceived intimidation by the research process (p < 0.001). These results provide insight into solutions for the workplace and graduate programs that could increase genetic counselors' research participation.

Abstract Eating disorders and substance use disorders frequently co‐occur. Twin studies reveal shared genetic variance between liabilities to eating disorders and substance use, with the strongest associations between symptoms of bulimia nervosa and problem alcohol use (genetic correlation [ r g ], twin‐based = 0.23‐0.53). We estimated the genetic correlation between eating disorder and substance use and disorder phenotypes using data from genome‐wide association studies (GWAS). Four eating disorder phenotypes (anorexia nervosa [AN], AN with binge eating, AN without binge eating, and a bulimia nervosa factor score), and eight substance‐use‐related phenotypes (drinks per week, alcohol use disorder [AUD], smoking initiation, current smoking, cigarettes per day, nicotine dependence, cannabis initiation, and cannabis use disorder) from eight studies were included. Significant genetic correlations were adjusted for variants associated with major depressive disorder and schizophrenia. Total study sample sizes per phenotype ranged from ~2400 to ~537 000 individuals. We used linkage disequilibrium score regression to calculate single nucleotide polymorphism‐based genetic correlations between eating disorder‐ and substance‐use‐related phenotypes. Significant positive genetic associations emerged between AUD and AN ( r g = 0.18; false discovery rate q = 0.0006), cannabis initiation and AN ( r g = 0.23; q < 0.0001), and cannabis initiation and AN with binge eating ( r g = 0.27; q = 0.0016). Conversely, significant negative genetic correlations were observed between three nondiagnostic smoking phenotypes (smoking initiation, current smoking, and cigarettes per day) and AN without binge eating ( r gs = −0.19 to −0.23; qs < 0.04). The genetic correlation between AUD and AN was no longer significant after co‐varying for major depressive disorder loci. The patterns of association between eating disorder‐ and substance‐use‐related phenotypes highlights the potentially complex and substance‐specific relationships among these behaviors.