Perspectives of young Chinese Singaporean women on seeking and processing information to decide about vaccinating against human papillomavirus

ABSTRACT

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination uptake in Singapore is low among young women. Low uptake has been found to be linked to low awareness. Thus, this study aimed to understand active and passive vaccine information-seeking behavior. Furthermore, guided by the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), this study examined young women’s (aged 21–26 years) processing of information they acquired in their decision to get vaccinated. ELM postulates that information processing could be through the central (i.e., logic-based) or peripheral (i.e., heuristic-based) route. Twenty-six in-depth interviews were conducted from January to March 2016. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Two meta-themes—information acquisition and vaccination decision—revealed the heuristic-based information processing was employed. These young women acquired information passively within their social network and actively in healthcare settings. However, they used heuristic cues, such as closeness and trust, to process the information. Similarly, vaccination decisions revealed that women relied on heuristic cues, such as sense of belonging and validation among peers and source credibility and likability in medical settings, in their decision to get vaccinated. The findings of this study highlight that intervention efforts should focus on strengthening social support among personal networks to increase the uptake of the vaccine.

KEYWORDS:

• Human papillomavirus
• information processing
• information-seeking behavior
• Singapore
• vaccination
• young women