Abstract

ASSESSMENT OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE ABOUT CERVICAL CANCER, HPV INFECTION, HPV VACCINE, ITS ACCEPTABILITY AMONG STAFF NURSES OF THREE TERTIARY CARE HOSPITALS IN DELHI

Vilas Nasare, R. Suresh Kumar, Nisha Thakur, Ravi Mehrotra, Malasha Kumari*

ABSTRACT

Background: Cervical Cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in females in developing countries and one in five women suffering from cervical cancer lives in India. Objective: To evaluate the knowledge and awareness about cervical cancer, HPV infection, HPV vaccine and its acceptability among staff nurses. Material and Methods: This was a cross-sectional survey carried out between June 2014 - June 2015 in three tertiary care hospital of Delhi. A predesigned, pretested, self-administered questionnaire consisting of multiple choices, close ended questionnaires were used to explore staff nurses knowledge on cervical cancer, its risk factors, HPV infections, HPV vaccine and willingness for HPV vaccination. Results: Overall, 97.2% staff nurses responded that they were aware of cervical cancer. Almost half of the staff nurses (49.1%) responded that they have heard of HPV infection also 69.6% correctly recognized that cervical cancer is the most common malignancy among gynecological cancers. Most of the staff nurses responded that common risk factors having role in the development of cervical cancer are poor genital hygiene (p = 0.001); multiple sexual partners (p = 0.007); abstinence of sex in days after delivery (p =0.018); higher numbers of deliveries (p = 0.004); abortions (p = 0.012) etc. In addition to them most of nurses knew HPV casual relationship role in the development of cervical cancer are more than two partners (p = 0.001) and unprotected sex (p = 0.018). Furthermore, knowledge of clinical features of HPV infection such as painful coitus (p = 0.001) was reported in 81.6% and 73.7% was infertility (p = 0.001) participants respectively. 99 (78.6%) participants reported that they were already aware of the HPV vaccine (p = 0.001) and majority 102(91.9%) of them were aware of the preventive nature of the vaccine too. Out of them 96 (82.1 %) supported the vaccination of adolescent girls while 18(40.0%) staff nurses were showing unwillingness for the vaccination and they reasoned efficacy and safety of the vaccine, children being too young to be vaccinated and sexual inactive. Conclusion: Knowledge about cervical cancer and its risk factors was high but knowledge about causes of HPV infection, HPV vaccines and willingness to be vaccinated was found to be comparatively less among staff nurses of three tertiary care hospitals in Delhi. Therefore there is an urgent need for re-orientation course for working staff nurses and integration of cervical cancer prevention issues in the nurses' existing curriculum in India.

Keywords: Cervical cancer; HPV infection, HPV vaccine; HPV vaccine acceptability; staff nurses.