HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS AND ITS VACCINE: AWARENESS AND ATTITUDES OF YOUNG FEMALE PAKISTANI STUDENT

OBJECTIVE: To determine awareness about human papillomavirus (HPV) among female students of medical field in Pakistan. METHODS: A researcher administered, descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted on a voluntary group of participants (n=629) belonging to medical field from August 2017 to December 2017. After taking permission from the administration random convenient sampling method was adopted. This survey included only female students who were currently studying in departments of medical/health sciences. Students of first and second professionals were excluded because they are beginners in medical fields. RESULTS: The main source of information regarding HPV was academic curriculum (38.25%) of the respondents, with only 21.70% claiming that healthcare providers had educated them about the same. However, 70.11% also reported that HPV/Pap test had never been recommended by their doctors. Many participants 36.09% had no prior knowledge of HPV vaccines; while 56.28% were willing to get vaccinated, the remaining 23.21% claimed a variety of reasons for their unwillingness and rest were uncertain. The top three reasons cited for unwillingness were being sexually inactive 54.79%, the reason of not knowing anything about vaccine 6.84% and cost of vaccines 6.84%. CONCLUSION: This study established that despite having knowledge about HPV, the populace required sufficient information about HPV vaccination for its acceptance and to prevent and combat the disease.