Sherman, S.M. orcid.org/0000-0001-6708-3398 and Nailer, E. (2018) Attitudes towards and knowledge about Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and the HPV vaccination in parents of teenage boys in the UK. PLOS ONE, 13 (4). e0195801. ISSN 1932-6203
Abstract
The incidence of cancers attributable to Human Papillomavirus (HPV) that affect males is on the rise. Currently in the UK teenage boys are not vaccinated against HPV while teenage girls are. The rationale for not vaccinating boys is that vaccinating girls should provide herd immunity to boys, however this does not protect men who have sex with men or men who have sex with unvaccinated women. The issue of whether to vaccinate boys or not is a controversial one with considerable lobbying taking place to change the existing policy. On one side of the debate are financial considerations while on the other side health equality is important. One avenue that has not been presented is the parental perspective. The current study uses a self-report questionnaire to explore what parents of teenage boys know about HPV and the vaccine and whether they want the vaccine for their sons. Only half of the parents had heard of HPV prior to completing the survey. Of those who had heard of HPV, knowledge about the health sequelae of HPV for men was poor relative to their knowledge about its impact on female health. Parents who would be willing to vaccinate their sons had higher levels of knowledge about HPV than those parents who would be unwilling or unsure. Irrespective of whether they had previously heard of HPV or not, once provided with a brief description of HPV, the majority of parents thought that boys should be offered the vaccination. There is a pressing need for public education about the potential impact of HPV on male health in order to facilitate uptake of the vaccine in the event of the vaccination programme being extended to men or to facilitate informed decision making about seeking the vaccine privately in the event that it isn’t.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 Sherman, Nailer. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Attitude to Health; Child; Decision Making; Female; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Nuclear Family; Papillomaviridae; Papillomavirus Infections; Papillomavirus Vaccines; Parents; Patient Acceptance of Health Care; United Kingdom; Vaccination; Young Adult |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Wellcome Trust 200281/Z/15/Z |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 17 Oct 2024 08:45 |
Last Modified: | 17 Oct 2024 08:45 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0195801 |
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Sustainable Development Goals: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:218343 |