The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and variables related to the acceptance of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among South Indian undergraduate medical, dentistry, and nursing students. A convenience sample of 988 students was polled using a post-test research methodology. The main result was vaccination acceptance. To investigate variables related to vaccination acceptance, bivariate analysis utilising the Chi-Square test of independence and multivariate binary logistic regression analysis was performed. The majority of the 988 students polled had heard of cervical cancer, HPV, or genital warts. Prior to the poll, only 59.7 per cent had heard of the HPV vaccination; 65.2 per cent wanted to take the vaccine; 68.3 per cent were likely to promote the vaccine to others. Participants under the age of 22 were less likely to accept the vaccination than those above the age of 22. Medical students, students who reported drinking alcohol, and students with average knowledge scores were more likely to plan to take the vaccination than others. Only the course and attitude scores were significantly linked with the desire to take the HPV vaccination in a multivariate analysis.
The HPV vaccination was intended for two-thirds of the kids. Although general awareness of HPV-related disease and prevention is high, there are significant knowledge gaps in many areas, indicating that additional teaching regarding HPV disease and the advantages of vaccination should be incorporated in the undergraduate medical school curriculum.
Reference: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21645515.2019.1565260
