Age: 17.0
Sex: F
Vaccine: HPVX, MEN
Symptoms: Eye disorder
Clinical narrative: This study then seeks to examine how exposure to online blog entries, either supporting or in opposition to the HPV vaccine, might influence vaccine-related risk perceptions, attitudes toward HPV vaccination, and intentions to receive the vaccine. METHOD Participants Undergraduate students from a large university were invited to complete an only survey in exchange for course credit. The sample was composed of 341 individuals, including 107 men and 234 women with a mean age of 20 (SD=2.50). Design and  Procedure Participants first visited a webpage that provided general study information. Informed consent was obtained as participants clicked the "agree to participate" button at the bottom of the informational webpage. The buttom was also programmed such that participants were randomly directed to three websites corresponding to the three experimental conditions (negative blog, positive blog, and control). Upon entering the study website, participants first responded to a series of preliminary questions, including those about their demographic background, awareness of HPV/HPV vaccines, general beliefs and attitudes toward vaccines/vaccination, and perceived susceptibility to and severity of HPV. Next, participants in the treatment groups (negative blod and positive blog) were told that they were about to see an article posted by an online blogger about the HPV vaccine and were instructed to read the blog carefully (see later description of the blogs). After participants finished reading the blog, they proceeded to complete a postintervention survey that included questions about HPV vaccine-related risk perceptions (i.e., perceived efficacy and safety of the vaccine), attitudes toward HPV vaccination, and intentions to vaccinate. Participants in the control group did not see any blog and proceeded to complete the survey directly. The entire study took approximately 20 minutes to complete for the treatment groups and about 15 minutes for the control group. The Online Blogs To enhance external validity, we used existing online blogs about the HPV vaccine (located through Blog Search) as templates. We selected two blogs with clear opposing views about the vaccine. We ensured that each of the selected blogs was a typical exemplar in its respective category, according to the trends uncovered in previous research. That is, the sample blogs were selected to be representative of the sorts of positive and negative content likely to be observed in the blogosphere. Both blogs focused on the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine, with the positive blog indicate that the vaccine is effective and safe and the negative blog suggesting that the vaccine is not effective and is potentially dangerous. We edited the two blogs so they were similar in length and comparable in visual aspects. To increase perceived authenticity of the blogs, we retained the authors' names, both proven unfamiliar to our study population in a pretest. We also avoided major editorial changes and left the grammatical errors uncorrected. This report concerned a 17 year old female patient (content of the blogs). In a paper by MD he reported of a case where a 17 year old presented with eye problems after she had the HPV vaccine (manufacturer unknown) and Meningococcus vaccine which are two vaccines recommended by the CDC to be given together. In a controlled experiment (N=341), college students were exposed to either a negative blog post about the HPV vaccine or a positive one. Compared to the control group, participants who had viewed the negative blog perceived the vaccine as less safe, held more negative attitudes toward the vaccine, and had reduced intentions to receive the vaccine. In contrast, exposure to the positive blog did not alter any vaccine-related risk perceptions, attitudes, or intentions. In conclusion, as people are getting more and more information online, health researchers and professionals need to move beyond simply monitoring information about vaccination and proceed to measure the consequence of this information. This study demonstrates the power of user-generated content in affecting vaccine-related risk perceptions, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. Developing effective strategies for presenting scientific vaccine information and counter misleading, yet powerful, anti-vaccination information online is critical for maximizing the health-protecting potential of vaccines, especially in the age of Web 2.0. A company of the published article is attached as further documentation of the patient's experience. This is one of several reports received from the same source. Additional information is not expected.