Psychosocial mediators for the impact of personal genomic risk information on melanoma prevention and early detection behaviors

Importance: In the Melanoma Genomics Managing Your Risk Study, receiving personal genomic risk testing led to improvements in some melanoma prevention and early detection behaviors.

Objective

We aimed to examine the hypothesized psychosocial mediators of the effects observed in the trial.

Design

Australians of European ancestry without melanoma and aged 18-69 years were recruited via the national Medicare database and randomized to receive personal genomic risk information or usual care (N = 1025). Questionnaires were administered at baseline, 1-month post-intervention, and 12-months post-baseline to assess self-reported prevention and early detection behaviors and psychosocial measures. We first evaluated the intervention's effect on psychosocial measures and the associations between psychosocial measures and behavioral outcomes. We then estimated the natural indirect effects (NIEs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to quantify the effects mediated by potential mediators identified.