Hungarian high school students’ attitudes toward HPV vaccination

*Bettina Claudia Balla¹, András Terebessy², Emese Tóth³, Pèter Balázs²

Summary
Introduction. On annual average, in a five year period (2008-2012) there died 407 women and 1490 new cases were diagnosed of cervical cancer in Hungary. The country’s screening program set up 2003 is available free of charge for all women aged 25-65.
Aim. Our study aimed to explore the knowledge and attitudes of senior high school girls (18/19 years) in Budapest about cervical cancer and toward the HPV vaccination.
Material and methods. 492 girls (52.6% of grammar and 47.3% of vocational schools) were selected randomly out of 12 facilities. They completed anonymously and voluntarily our self-administered questionnaire between April 2013, and May 2014. The survey of 54 matrix questions concerned basic socio-demographic and lifestyle factors and questions partly assessing the girls’ knowledge about cervical cancer partly testing their attitudes toward HPV vaccination and vaccination programs.
Results. 70.1% of the girls knew exactly the STD nature of HPV infection, however 9.8% heard never of the HPV vaccine. Their views about the vaccination were rather positive as 59.9% would make it compulsory, and 79.5% would have vaccinated their own future children too. Additionally, 63.2% of girls (among them the significant majority of vocational schools) would have vaccinated boys as well. More than two out of ten girls (23.1%) were already vaccinated. As for secondary prevention, 91.4% believed that the regular attending of cervical cancer screening was important.
Conclusions. The girls’ knowledge in our sample about cervical cancer and the HPV vaccination proved to be substandard. Grammar schools girls had more thorough knowledge that increased their receptiveness of vaccination.

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