Publication:

A study to assess the knowledge of human papillomavirus vaccine among school girls of Bhopal city

Background Objectives of the study were to assess the existing knowledge of the human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and the impact of educational intervention among school girls.

Methods This study is a Quasi-experimental study conducted on 150 girls of 9th to 12th standard studying in a school. A pre-test questionnaire was used to assess the baseline knowledge, following which an interactive educational session was held and a post-test questionnaire was used to collect data. The impact of the intervention was analysed using a paired t-test. A Chi-square test was used to assess the willingness towards HPV vaccine pre and post-test.

Results Lack of awareness (96.67%) was the primary barrier to knowledge regarding HPV vaccine. There was a significant increase in the mean knowledge scores from the pre-test (2.4±0.5) to the post-test (18.66±1.83) and the difference was statistically highly significant (p<0.0001).

Conclusions After the educational intervention, the mean knowledge of the study participants improved drastically with the majority of them showing willingness regarding the HPV vaccination.