Knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about cervical cancer and human papilloma virus vaccination with related factors in Turkish university students

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to determine knowledge, attitudes and believes about cervical cancer and human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination with related factors in Turkish university students. Materials and Methods: This descriptive and cross sectional study was conducted between June-July 2013 in Hitit University located in Corum, a rural area to the East of Ankara. The population consisted of 550 university students who were training in first and last year from Faculties of Economics, Theology and Health. We reached 463 volunteer students without selection. The study of data was collected with a 44 item questionaire covering socio-demographic features, knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about cervical cancer, HPV and vaccination. Also for this study ethic committee report was taken from Bozok University. Data were evaluated with the SPSS 17.0 programme using the Ki kare test with P<0.05 accepted as statistically significant. Results: It was seen that there was a statistically significant variation between classrooms and departments of students with knowledge about cervical cancer and human papilloma virus and vaccine (p<0.001; p<0.01; p<0.05). Also we found low attitudes to thinking about taking HPV vaccination of girls and their children in the future. Conclusions: In light of the study findings; it was concluded that knowledge levels, beliefs and attitudes of the university students about cervical cancer, HPV infection and HPV vaccination were low.