Knowledge and acceptance of HPV vaccine among adolescents, parents and health professionals: Construct development for collection and database composition

Abstract

Introduction: The human papillomavirus (HPV) is a prevalent viral infection in the sexually active population, which can be oncogenic and non-oncogenic. Educational efforts by health professionals, aimed at adolescents and their parents, help decision-making on human papillomavirus vaccination, benefiting the implantation process and vaccine coverage. Objective: To describe the data collection constructs about knowledge and acceptability of HPV vaccine among adolescents, parents and health professionals. Methods: Study of construct elaboration based on an empirical review of the literature with a qualitative focus on PubMed database, from 2007 to 2014, using the following keywords: Papillomaviridae AND Papillomavirus Vaccines AND Knowledge AND Community Health Services. A total of 31 questions were divided into six categories. In the internal validation, the final construct was applied in 390 subjects (adolescents, parents/guardians and health professionals) in the period of 2014. The proportion of assertive responses and respective 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to describe each question. Results: Three articles on the subject were found in the databases consulted that served as the basis for the elaboration of the questionnaire. There was a lower proportion of correct answers among adolescents about knowledge of HPV. Adolescents, parents, and carers showed a low proportion of correctness about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. The three groups did not show any barriers to vaccine acceptability. Conclusion: The instrument was adequate to measure knowledge about HPV, its repercussions and its vaccine among adolescents, parents/guardians and health professionals, as well as measuring the acceptability of the human papillomavirus vaccine.