Nível de conhecimento dos acadêmicos de medicina sobre o HPV e o câncer do colo uterino

Abstract

Introduction: The Papilomaviridae (HPV) is the world's most frequent sexually transmitted infection. Nevertheless, among health students and professionals, the level of knowledge about the HPV infection is unknown. Objectives: To analyze the basic knowledge of medical students about the HPV and the uterine cervical neoplasm. Methods: Cross-sectional study, developed by a questionnaire distributed among 100 medical school's academics, in two groups (G1= 50 students from the 1st year and G2= 50 students from the 6th year), containing questions related to the knowledge of HPV infection and sexuality. The magnitude of the association was assessed by measures of associations estimate (odds ratio) and their CI. The process of entry and statistical analysis was conducted by EPI- INFO 3.5.2 program. Results: Of the 100 students researched, 52% were male and 48% female; mean age of 23.1 years and the debut sexual mean was 16.5 years. A great part of the students knows about the association with cervical cancer (64%G1/88%G2) and genital warts (70%G1/80%G2). In the other hand, the association with anal, esophageal, and oral cancer were less cited, respectively, G1: 10%, 2%, 4% and G2: 40%, 18%, 16%. G2 is more informed about cancer with a significant p-value in all analyzes. As for the occasion for HPV vaccination, more students said it should be done only before debut sexual. Only 28% of G1 and 14% of G2 (31% of women and 7% of men) claimed to be vaccinated against HPV. Among unvaccinated, 72.5 % of female and 23% male said they intend to be vaccinated.(p<0,001). Conclusions: Medical students are not properly informed about HPV infection, and this may contribute to reducing the vaccine coverage and increase of HPV-induced diseases at the population. (English) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]