Awareness of women about cervical smear, human papilloma virus and human papilloma virus vaccine

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the awareness level of women about cervical smears, human papilloma virus (HPV), and HPV vaccine in a rural city in the central part of Anatolia. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 553 patients were included in the study. A 16 item questionnaire developed by our group was completed by all participants. The first part of the questionnaire collected the demographic and socioeconomic information of the participants. In the second part, it was questioned whether this information had a relationship with HPV, HPV vaccine awareness, and cervical screening tests. In the third part, the participants were asked questions related to the acceptance of an HPV vaccine for themselves and their willingness to give consent to have their children vaccinated. RESULTS: In our study, it was found that HPV awareness significantly increased with the level of education, occupational status and total monthly family income (p<0.001). There was a significant increase in HPV vaccine awareness as the parity (p=0.016), level of education (p=0.025), and occupational status (p=0.001) increased. Having a Pap smear significantly increased with age, income, and number of parity (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: Our study revealed that only 9.8% of the women had knowledge about HPV, the majority of the women reported that they would accept vaccination for themselves and for their children. These results indicate that physicians should pay attention to increasing the awareness about HPV.