Using psychological antecedents to explain and change HPV vaccination behavior

Abstract

Vaccination hesitancy refers to delaying or refusing important vaccinations despite their availability. Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, which protects against many variants of cervical cancer, has been recommended for girls and boys at the ages of 9–14 years; however, vaccination rates are lower compared to other childhood vaccinations and there are also significant dropout rates between the first and second vaccinations. Every year 1500 women in Germany and 311,000 women worldwide die from cervical cancer. Elimination of cervical cancer by the end of the century would theoretically be possible and global strategies exist to achieve this goal but this would require, among other things, significantly higher vaccination rates. This article looks at which psychological factors favor and which are barriers to HPV vaccination and what physicians can do to increase vaccination motivation.