Background: Genomic sequencing is increasingly been instituted to improve the understanding of molecular causes of cancer and to help inform patient’s diagnosis and treatment. There are several challenges to the integration of clinical sequencing into routine clinical practice in Africa; such as clinicians’ attitude and literacy to genomics and experience working with genomics. The aim of this study is to evaluate the knowledge of genomic education amongst African cancer clinicians and their attitude towards adopting genetics in their practices.
Methods: We conducted a survey amongst cancer clinicians at a tertiary level hospital, in Lagos, Nigeria between September 2019 to April 2020. The survey instrument was an 18-item self-report questionnaire which comprised of six sections. Some sections were categorized and each category ranked.
Results: A total of 35 participants took part in the study with predominantly male respondents. Majority of the respondents were >5 years in the practice of oncology. Majority of the respondents ranked themselves as “knowledgeable” to basic genetics and less knowledgeable to advance genetics. They rated su iciency of genomic education as low in medical schools and clinical training institutions. They ranked the importance of genomics to clinical practice as major but clinicians’ attitudes towards the clinical application of genomics remains sceptical.
Conclusion: While there were limitations to this study, the high concentration of clinicians and their response rate was an advantage.
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The Annals of Medical and Health Sciences Research is a bi-monthly multidisciplinary medical journal.