Evaluation of knowledge and awareness of dentists and dental students about human papillomavirus vaccination and oropharyngeal cancer relationship

Abstract

Objective: As the incidence of oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) has increased rapidly in recent years, the role of dentists on this issue is also increasing. This study aims to determine the knowledge and awareness of dentists and dental students about HPV vaccination and the relationship of OPC. Methods: A total of 209 participants, consisting of 82 dentists and 127 dental students, were filled out the questionnaires about the general HPV knowledge, HPV-OPC relationship, and HPV vaccination. The Fisher Exact and the Mann Whitney U tests were used to determining the difference between the two groups. The analyses were performed in R, and the significance levels were set at 0.05. Results: The majority of the respondents answered the general questions about HPV correctly. Almost all of the participants in our study were found to have high awareness about the HPV-OPC relationship, most of them do not have enough information about the HPV-related OPCs have a better prognosis than other OPCs. Both dentists and dental students stated that they did not think they had enough information about HPV vaccination. Dental students were more conscious and more motivated than dentists in recommending HPV vaccination to their patients (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Our study showed that dentists and dentistry students had a high level of knowledge in general subjects related to HPV. It was determined that the knowledge of both groups was insufficient regarding the HPV-OPC relationship and HPV vaccination, and the participants were eager to overcome these shortcomings.