How French adolescents use images to represent HPV vaccination (during school-based workshops) adolescents and HPV vaccination

Abstract

Objective:

In this study we investigated adolescent students’ (13–15 years old) social representations of the vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) by analysing their iconographic productions of the vaccination.

Design:

A qualitative study with workshops was set up in three volunteer schools. Student groups created a total of 27 posters about the vaccination.

Results:

Two types of messages emerged: the first presented vaccination as a means of preventing cancer, while the second presented it as a means of promoting sexual health.

Conclusion:

The choice between using one message type or the other seemed to stem from the fact that students appropriated the subject of the workshops differently.

Keywords:

• Social representations
• images
• vaccination against HPV infection
• teenagers
• school environment

Acknowledgement

The authors thank Jude Sweeney for the English revision of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.