An educational intervention to improve attitudes regarding HPV vaccination and comfort with counseling among US medical students

ABSTRACT

Many medical students are not comfortable recommending the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine because they do not feel prepared to discuss it with their patients. A prior study demonstrated that this is particularly a problem among unvaccinated students. Our purpose was to determine if medical student attitudes and comfort with counseling could be improved by attending a single lecture delivered by an expert on the topic. To assess the effects of the educational program, we conducted pre- and posttests on medical students before and after a single lecture on HPV vaccination. Changes in items related to attitude and comfort were examined. Student characteristics associated with changes in scores were also examined and compared. A total of 256 medical students participated in the pre- and posttests. Before the lecture, students demonstrated low knowledge of HPV vaccination and did not feel comfortable counseling parents of younger patients. However, students <30 years of age demonstrated significant improvements after the lecture in comfort. Asian and Hispanic students showed the greatest improvement in comfort with counseling, as did students who reported they had not received the HPV vaccine. Attending a single lecture given by an expert can improve medical students’ attitudes and comfort with HPV vaccine counseling, especially if the students were not vaccinated themselves. This study suggests that including material on HPV vaccination in the standard medical student curriculum could help increase physician recommendation for the HPV vaccine.

KEYWORDS:

• HPV vaccination
• education initiatives
• educational programs
• medical students
• provider attitudes

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Additional information

Funding

Support for this study was provided by the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) (PP160010 and PP180012, Berenson, PD). Dr. Fuchs is supported by a research career development award (K12HD052023: Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health-BIRCWH; Berenson, PI) from the Office of Research on Women’s Health and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of CPRIT, the NIH, or any institute therein.