Achieving optimal human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine uptake might be hampered by parents’ HPV vaccination hesitation, which is viewed as a multi-stage intention process rather than a binary result. The goal was to investigate HPV-related attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge through time, as well as to assess the influence of psychosocial variables on HPV vaccination acceptance in HPV vaccine reluctant parents of both boys and girls. In September 2016 and July 2017, researchers utilized an online survey to collect data from a nationally representative sample of Canadian parents of 9–16-year-old boys and girls. They classified HPV vaccination apprehensive parents as unengaged/undecided or decided not to use the Precaution Adoption Process Model. Sociodemographics, health behaviors, and validated scales for HPV and HPV vaccine-related attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge were among the measures used. Binomial logistic regression was used to examine predictors of HPV vaccination acceptance. Parents of both boys and girls who were classified as “flexible” reluctant improved their HPV-related attitudes, actions, knowledge, and intentions to vaccinate over time, whereas “rigid” hesitant remained essentially unchanged. Greater social encouragement to vaccinate, stronger HPV knowledge, higher family wealth, white ethnicity, and lower perception of risks were linked with better HPV vaccination acceptance in “flexible” reluctant.

Parents who are hesitant to get their children vaccinated against HPV are not a homogeneous group. In “flexible” hesitant parents, researchers discovered significant indicators of HPV vaccination acceptance. More study is needed to evaluate the relationships between psychosocial variables and vaccination acceptance in “rigid” vaccine reluctant parents.

Reference: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21645515.2019.1575711

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