Awareness of human papilloma virus, cervical cancer and HPV vaccine in healthcare workers and students of medical and nursing schools

Abstract

Objectives: Establishment of the knowledge and the need to make conscious in medicine students, nursing students and nurses due to the effective role of updating conscious of the health workers, we aimed to assess the knowledge of nurses and students of İstanbul Bilim University and affiliated hospitals about HPV and cervical cancer. Materials and methods: Because healthcare personnel illuminate and influences the public, the survey was conducted to medicine students of the first three years, nursing students and nurses. The reason of choosing the first three years of medicine students is with the begining of the gynecology courses at the 4th year of education in medical faculty, learning takes the place of awareness. Totally 743 participants were asked to survey but 603 subjects responded (81.2%) then the surveys that was not asked for the identity information were taken into consideration Results: Nurses and students of nursing had better knowledge about smear test when compared to students of medicine (first 3 years) and other healthcare personnel. Only 52% accepted to get a daughter vaccinated. The main reasons for vaccine rejection were the concerns about vaccine safety (41%), cost of the vaccine (10%) and sexual promiscuity (5%) after vaccination. Religious aspects were not considered as an obstacle. Conclusions: The awareness of HPV, cervical cancer and HPV vaccination should be increased.