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The process of counseling may require more than one visit to address medical, genetic testing, and psychosocial support issues. Additional case-related preparation time is spent before and after the consultation sessions to obtain and review medical records, complete case documentation, seek information about differential diagnoses, identify appropriate laboratories for genetic tests, find patient support groups, research resources, and communicate with or refer to other specialists.[1]

Information about inherited risk of cancer is growing rapidly. Many of the issues discussed in a counseling session may need to be revisited as new information emerges. At the end of the counseling process, individuals are typically reminded of the possibility that future research may provide new options and/or new information on risk. Individuals may be advised to check in with the health care provider periodically to determine whether new information is sufficient to merit an additional counseling session. The obligation of health care providers to recontact individuals when new genetic testing or treatment options are available is controversial, and standards have not been established.

Methods of Risk Presentation

The usage of numerical probabilities to communicate risk may overestimate the level of risk certainty, especially when wide confidence intervals exist to the estimates, or when the individual may differ in important ways from the sample on which the risk estimate was derived. As well, numbers are often inadequate for expressing gut-level or emotional aspects of risk. Finally, there are wide variations in individuals' level of understanding of mathematical concepts (i.e., numeracy). For all the above reasons, conveying risk in multiple ways, both numerically and verbally, with discussion of important caveats, may be a useful strategy to increase risk comprehension. The numerical format that facilitates the best understanding is natural frequencies, because frequencies include information concerning the denominator, or the reference group to which the individual may refer. In general logarithmic scales are to be avoided.[2] Additionally, important "contextual" risks may be included with the frequency in order to increase risk comprehension, and these may include how the person's risk compares with those who do not have the risk factor in question, as well as the risks associated with common hazards, such as being in a car accident. Additional suggestions include being consistent in risk formats (do not mix odds and percentages), using the same denominator across risk estimates, avoiding decimal points, including base rate information, and providing more explanation if the risk is less than one percent.

The communication of risk may be numerical, verbal, or visual. Use of multiple strategies may increase comprehension and retention of cancer genetic risk information.[2] Recently, use of visual risk communication strategies has increased, e.g., histograms, pie charts, and Venn diagrams. Visual depictions of risk may be very useful in avoiding problems with comprehension of numbers, but research that confirms this is lacking.[3,4] A study published in 2008 examined the use of two different visual aids to communicate breast cancer risk. Women at an increased risk of breast cancer were randomized to receive feedback via a bar graph alone or a bar graph plus a frequency diagram (i.e., highlighted human figures). Results indicate that overall, there were no differences in improved accuracy of risk perception between the two groups, but among those women who inaccurately perceived very high risk at baseline, the group receiving both visual aids showed greater improvement in accuracy.[5]