Discussion:
In order for the HPV vaccine to be effective as a public health measure, we require 85% uptake [8]. Despite, an increase in uptake from the previous year, 2019 still only saw 70% uptake and the introduction of the vaccine for boys is too early to comment on its success. With this in mind it is crucial that we continue to educate the public around HPV and its associated diseases, as well as promote the vaccine.
From our study, we were pleased to see that 72% of women had heard of the virus. However, despite hearing of the virus, this cohort of women still demonstrated a lack of knowledge surrounding its pathophysiology, with only 55% knowing what diseases it causes, 60% knowing how it is transmitted and 61% knowing how to prevent it .We also acknowledge that over one quarter of participants in our study, admit to not even hearing about the virus. This indicates that further education is needed.
It is clear from our study, that there is increased acceptance of the vaccine in those who are more educated on its role. This highlights the need for education in order to increase vaccine uptake. From those who had heard of the virus, 70% believed girls should receive the HPV vaccine. This is compared to those who had not heard of the virus, where only 21% believed girls should receive the vaccine. Combined, this gave us an overall rate of 56% who agreed that girls should receive the HPV vaccine – far below what the ideal uptake rate is. Interesting, less participants believed boys should receive the vaccine, with more participants showing uncertainty, and answering ‘I don’t know’. Of those who had heard of the vaccine, only 51% believed boys should receive the vaccine. This is compared to the 70% who believed girls should. This may be due to less awareness and education surrounding the role of the vaccine in this gender, given its new introduction to the vaccine schedule. With this in mind, it will be interesting to see the HPSC data once released from the year 2019/20, in order to compare the actual data of vaccine uptake between the two genders. If the data reflects that in our study, further efforts will need to be put in place to specifically highlight the role of the vaccine in males. We consider this discrepancy to be the most important finding of our study.
Finally, our study acknowledged a heterogony in information sources used by participants to receive information surrounding the virus. Interestingly, doctors and health care professionals were not the most common quoted source of information, but rather ‘the news’. Social media was the third most common source. This is an important finding, as it may influence how we should proceed with educating people about HPV. We acknowledge that our study is small, however in order to tackle the sub-optimal rates of vaccine uptake, alternative and novel ways of patient education may need to be employed.
The weakness of this study include that it is a single centre study with limited numbers. We would recommend that this study be replicated across various units to offer insight into different populations, as well as increases participant numbers. We also acknowledge that our questionnaire used was not validated, however we were unable to source a validated questionnaire for our study at present.
In conclusion this study demonstrates that increased focus educating people on HPV and its associated diseases is required, in order to reach optimal vaccine uptake. Education is particularly needed towards the male population. We also need to further explore the most effective way of educating the public, and potentially explore alternative mediums, such as social media.
We have no interests to disclose.
Authorship:
SJM was the primary author involved at all stages including, planning the study, carrying out the study, analysing results and writing up the work.
AD was involved in planning the study and analysing the results.
MW was involved in analysing the results and writing up the work.
We received ethical approval for this study from the Research Ethics Committee of HSE South Eastern Area on 23rd December 2019.
No funding was required for this study.