Time-dependent changes of the intention of mothers in Japan to inoculate their daughters with the HPV vaccine after suspension of governmental recommendation

In Japan, the trend for cervical cancer at younger ages has been increasing. As a countermeasure, the HPV vaccine was introduced as a routine vaccination in April 2013. However, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) announced a “Suspension of its active inoculation recommendation for HPV vaccine” in June 2013. In 2016, 32 months after that suspension, we conducted survey via Internet and compared the results with our previous ones conducted at 9 and 23 months after suspension (in 2014 and 2015, respectively). We examined the ‘time-dependent change’ of the ‘intention of mothers to inoculate their daughters with the HPV vaccine’ in terms of efficacy of external decision-making support. 17.5% of mothers in the first survey replied that they would inoculate their daughters under the current circumstances, 12.1% in the second survey, and 6.7% in the third, showing a consistent decrease in willingness over time (p = 0.03, p < 0.01). If the government recommendation were to be reintroduced, 22.5% of mothers in the first survey replied they would inoculate their daughters, 21.0% in the second survey, which indicated no significant difference (p = 0.65) over the first interval; however, this was significantly decreased to 12.2% in the third survey (p < 0.01). Our study revealed that the intention to inoculate their daughters has been declining among Japanese mothers over time triggered by the suspension.