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.