Psychosocial determinants of Chinese parental HPV vaccination intention for adolescent girls: preventing cervical cancer

Abstract

Background: Intention is an important precursor of decisions to undergo vaccination. Using an extensively modified theory of planned behaviour, we explored psychosocial determinants of vaccination intention against human papillomavirus (HPV) among Hong Kong Chinese parents.Methods: A random sample of 368 (response rate 54.6%) Chinese parents who had at least one daughter aged 12-17 years, had heard of HPV vaccine before but had not vaccinated daughters against HPV and had completed telephone interviews between February and April 2014. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis examined the additive effect of theoretical constructs. Stepwise multiple regression analysis determined which variables contributed the most to the prediction of vaccination intention.Results: Principal determinants of parental HPV vaccination intention were anticipated worry if not vaccinated (β = 0.23, p = 0.001), anticipated anxiety reduction after HPV vaccination (β = 0.19, p = 0.005), proneness to peer influence (β = 0.17, p = 0.002), private health insurance for children (β = 0.14, p = 0.009), perceiving daughter's susceptibility to cervical cancer (β = 0.17, p = 0.003), number of daughters (β = À0.13, p = 0.011), descriptive norms of HPV vaccination (β = 0.13, p = 0.021), perceiving cervical cancer as behaviour-preventable disease (β = À0.11, p = 0.031) and anticipated regret if not vaccinated (β = 0.14, p = 0.046). Cervical cancer-related worry/anxiety explained 32.8% of the variance in parental HPV vaccination intention.Conclusions: Results suggest that cervical cancer-related worry/anxiety is the most important predictor of parental HPV vaccination intention in Hong Kong Chinese and possibly other populations. Social influences also play an important role affecting parental vaccination intention, particularly peer influence and descriptive norm beliefs. Implications of these results are discussed in terms of future HPV vaccination promotion and cervical cancer prevention programme.

Factors associated with hindering the acceptance of HPV vaccination among caregivers - A cross-sectional study in Argentina

“…In accordance with the results of similar studies, most of the caregivers surveyed were women of around 40 years of age (90%) [16,32]. This is to be expected because women have been traditionally in charge of caring for and making decisions regarding their children's health [33][34][35].…”

The Acceptability of HPV Vaccines and Perceptions of Vaccination against HPV among Physicians and Nurses in Hong Kong

“…The main reason parents refused to allow their daughters the shots was that they were worried about side effects. Another study conducted by Wang et al [9] found that anxiety about their daughters getting cervical cancer was the most significant predictor of parental intention to get their daughters vaccinated among Chinese mothers in Hong Kong. Social influences and beliefs also affect parental intention regarding vaccination.…”

“…Past research on the acceptability of vaccination against HPV has focused on men having sex with men (SMS) [10], on female attitudes [11], parental attitudes [12,13,14,15,16,17], maternal attitudes [8,9,18,19]), and the views of baccalaureate students [20], secondary school pupils and adolescent girls [8,21,22,23]. Other research has focused on physicians’ attitudes towards prescribing HPV vaccines to patients [24,25].…”

Developing a preventive psycho‐oncology for a global context. The International Psycho‐Oncology Society 2018 Sutherland Award Lecture

“…Where effective cancer prevention strategies exist, problems of uptake remain due to ignorance, risk discounting, and financial barriers, among other reasons. For example, resistance to human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination against future cervical cancer risk among Hong Kong Chinese parents of adolescent girls involves myths around increased promiscuity and monogamy, cost barriers, and suspicion associated with financial motives of private doctors recommending HPV vaccination in a free market health care system (eg,). Providing evidence of the roles played by these issues prompted subsequent government funding for both education and vaccine provision to improve uptake.…”