Evaluating Changes in Knowledge, Beliefs, and Behaviors Associated with HPV Following an Educational Intervention among Women

Evaluating Changes in Knowledge, Beliefs, and Behaviors Associated with HPV Following an Educational Intervention among Women Crystal Sheaves, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC . Background: Prevalence of HPV is estimated to be 10-15% among Americans. HPV is recognized as the causative agent in 99.7% of all cervical cancers. In 2006, a vaccine was released to prevent specific types of HPV that cause cervical cancer. Despite demonstrated vaccine safety and efficacy, vaccine rates are still low at less than 20% among women 18-26 years old. Vaccine uptake may be impacted by women’s HPV knowledge and beliefs. Aims: The purpose of this study was to evaluate changes in women’s knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors associated with HPV following an educational intervention study. Specifically, the study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a video-based HPV prevention education intervention as compared to the standard of care written HPV educational material on improving women’s knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors regarding HPV prevention. Methods: This study used a quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test design with delayed intervention treatment for the control group. Recruitment included women 18-26 years of age who had not yet had the HPV vaccine. Results: Both the control and intervention group had low HPV knowledge prior to education. Knowledge scores increased significantly for both groups following education. Type of education had no significant impact on HPV knowledge. Women’s willingness to accept the vaccine for themselves and their children increased for both groups over time, while the women in the video-based intervention were significantly more willing to accept the vaccine for their adolescent sons at time 2. Health beliefs related to HPV infection and HPV prevention also positively changed for both groups over time. Furthermore, health beliefs were a significant predictor of participants’ willingness to accept the vaccine for themselves at time 2. Conclusion: Despite the majority of women having regular contact with health care providers for pap testing in this study, participants had overall low HPV knowledge scores at study enrollment, which improved following both educational approaches. The women in this study had an increased willingness to accept the vaccine for themselves and their adolescent children following education and women receiving the video-based intervention were significantly more willing to accept the vaccine for their adolescent sons at time 2. Why this happened is unclear, but perhaps the video-based educational information regarding eligibility for the vaccine was more gender neutral than the CDC written fact sheet used in this study. Future studies need to explore why women who have access to regular pap testing are not receiving the HPV knowledge that would facilitate their ability to make informed decisions regarding HPV primary prevention. Additionally, future research should investigate the impact of gender neutral language in HPV educational materials as a means of increasing HPV vaccine uptake among adolescent males.