Awareness of human papillomavirus and factors associated with intention to obtain HPV vaccination among Korean youth: quasi experimental study

Abstract

BackgroundThis study aimed to determine the awareness among fifth-grade girls and boys of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), cancer, and human papillomavirus (HPV), and to determine the factors associated with intention to obtain the HPV vaccination.MethodsA quasi experimental design was employed with Korean fifth-grade students as the subjects for this study (n=117). Prior to providing HPV education, the awareness and health beliefs regarding STDs and cancer prevention were assessed according to gender. After 2 hours of HPV education, gender comparisons were made with respect to the awareness and health beliefs, HPV knowledge, and intention to obtain the HPV vaccination, and the factors associated with that intention.ResultsPrior to the 2hours education session, only two boys knew that HPV is a virus. There were significant gender differences with respect to responses to the statements “STD is preventable” (χ2=8.76, p=0.013) and “cancer is preventable” (χ2=6.37, p=0.041), and concerns about the pain associated with vaccine injection (z=−2.44, p=0.015). After HPV education, there were no significant gender differences in HPV knowledge and intention to obtain the HPV vaccination. Awareness that “HPV vaccine can prevent cervical cancer” was significantly related to intention to obtain the HPV vaccine among both boys and girls.ConclusionsIncreased HPV knowledge could positively influence the intention to obtain the HPV vaccination among youth. Thus, HPV education at elementary school would be helpful to make students aware of HPV and the importance of HPV prevention.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12914-015-0042-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Sexually Transmitted Infections and First Sexual Intercourse Age in Adolescents: The Nationwide Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study

“…Increased number of STI incidence could be explained by two ways: the number of healthcare centers that reports have increased or the current social trend for increasing number of sexual activity and lowering of sexual activity initiation age. Adolescents who did not get STI treatment were 44.7% [4]. In previous study, among adolescents, homeless adolescent has very high prevalence of STIs [23].…”

“…Also, each school's health center, where most of adolescent can easily access to, should be equipped simple STI test tool. Also, as previous studies [4,14,15] suggested, it might be beneficial to rearrange and intensify formal STI surveillance.…”

“…HPV infection appears to be the principal cause of genital warts [27], and to prevent HPV infection, education and immunization are key [28]. Populations in many other countries are unaware of HPV and of the HPV vaccination [4]. Also, due to that unfamiliarity, in the United Kingdom, there is a lack of awareness of HPV and of the benefits of obtaining HPV vaccination among boys [4,29].…”

“…Because the survey only queried the subjective household economic status, we used the Family Affluence Scale, which consists of the following four indicators [11], as a proxy indicator of household economic status (Appendix 1). The family affluence variable was grouped according to three classes based on cutoff points for scores on the Family Affluence Scale: low (0-2), middle (3)(4)(5), and high (6)(7)(8)(9).…”

“…In 2010, 5.3% of Korean adolescents (age [13][14][15][16][17][18][19] were estimated to be sexually active, and 10% of those had experienced an STI. Additionally, 44.7% of those who experienced an STI had not received treatment [4].…”