Knowledge and interest of Turkish women about cervical cancer and HPV vaccine

Objective: We aimed to evaluate the knowledge and interest level of Turkish women about HPV, HPV vaccines and cervical cancer using a questionaire. Method: A 25-item questionnaire was distributed to women in three different cities located in separate sociocultural locations. Results: At the closure of the study 143 women responded and returned the survey. Of the participants 62.2% (89) had a university degree, 36.4% (52) a high school education, and 1.4% (2) had lower school degrees; 98.5% of the women would consent to have their daughter vaccinated for HPV and 94.7% would consent to have their son vaccinated if vaccine provided prevention against cancer and related diseases. However in both cases women gave importance to the "cost" - unless vaccine could be free. On logistic regression analyses none of the variables (i.e., questions) in the survey predicted women's willingness to accept the vaccine for themselves or their children. Conclusions: Women in Turkey would be willing to have themselves and their children receive HPV vaccine against cervical cancer and related diseases.

Cervical cancer; Human Papillomavirus; HPV; Vaccine

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