Human Papilloma virus has been related not only to 98% of cervical cancers but also to mouth and throat cancers. There is a vaccine that prevents contraction of this virus: HPV vaccine. This vaccine although proven effective and safe there are still children who have not received the vaccine,  mainly due to myths and misconceptions that parents have about the vaccine. The purpose of this project was to demystify the myths and provide parents with real knowledge about the vaccine.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1448/thumbnail.jp

vivas, alejandra

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University of VermontScholarWorks @ UVMFamily Medicine Clerkship Student Projects Larner College of Medicine2018HPV vaccinealejandra vivasFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerkPart of the Medical Education Commons, and the Primary Care CommonsThis Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Larner College of Medicine at ScholarWorks @ UVM. It has been accepted for inclusion inFamily Medicine Clerkship Student Projects by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ UVM. For more information, please contactdonna.omalley@uvm.edu.Recommended Citationvivas, alejandra, "HPV vaccine" (2018). Family Medicine Clerkship Student Projects. 384.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/384Plattsburgh, New YorkAlejandra VivasLindsey WilhelmHuman Papilloma VirusPlattsburgh, New YorkAlejandra VivasLindsey WilhelmJuly 2018HPV causes 98% of cervical cancer but it can also cause anal, vaginal, throat and mouth cancer besides genital warts.Although there has been a lot of strategies to incentivize parents to vaccinate their kids against HPV infection, there are still a lot of miss conceptions, myths and knowledge gaps regarding this topic. Some of the most common myths around the topic are:-HPV always clears on its own, it wont really cause any big damage-HPV only affects girls-There is no rush to vaccinate pre-teens, they are too young to get the vaccine.HPVEvery hour 40 new cases of genital warts occur in the US. Even after treated in 25% of the cases the warts will appear again.There is no treatment to get rid of HPV once you have it.STATISTICSTalking to the Clinton county public health nurse, NAME, one of the biggest problems involving HPV vaccination is data collection, since pediatricians and other providers are not required to report when they give the vaccine unlike other medications they provide.The CDC reports that:Each year there are 14 Million new cases of HPV in the US. 50%of these cases are people between 15 to 24 This means every day around 19000 teens and young adults acquire the HPV virus. This is about the size of all of Plattsburgh’s population (the project implementation site)In the U.S, about 12,000 women get cervical cancer every year, and about 4,000 women die from it.Every year there are 6300 new cases of anal cancer and 4500 new cases of vaginal cancerINTERVIEWSIn order to attain information regarding HPV vaccination pertaining to the city of Plattsburgh, I interviewed a local pediatrician, a pediatrics office manager and two head nurses at the public health department at Clinton county, New York. From them I learned the following:One of the biggest issues regarding HPV vaccine is getting the kids to get the two or three shots necessary for immunity. Many of them start the vaccine but might not complete the necessary doses, specially if they start as teenagers and are not in sports, because they are lest likely to come for a well child visit.Many parents think that the vaccine will make their child promiscuous or believe that their child will not engage in sexual behavior latter on (which will prevent them from having the virus) if they are warned about the consequences.When the pediatrician advices to get the vaccine at age 11, a lot of parents believe is too soon to have the vaccine and that it won’t protect the kids for a long period of time.Some parents still believe that HPV vaccine is only for girls and that their boys will not be affected by the virus if they get infected. They do not know that cervical cancer is one of the cancers that HPV causes, and that throat and mouth cancers are currently on the rise affecting more people every day. INTERVENTION• A pamphlet targeted to inform parents about HPV, HPV vaccination and designed to clarify misconceptions about this topic was generated.• A medical student attended the pediatric office at ADRESS and asked parents before they entered to their doctor’s appointment if they planned on vaccinating their kids against Human papilloma virus or HPV.• If the parents answered no or what is that? The medical student would give them he pamphlet with the information. After reading the pamphlet the medical student asked: Will you talk to your doctor about vaccinating your kids against HPV today?• If they answered no we would ask why?• The responses were recorded by the medical student.RESPONSEQuestion 2:Will you talk to your doctor about vaccinating your kids against HPV today?20 yes2 noQuestion 1:Are you planning on vaccinating your kids against Human papilloma virus or HPV?Answersa) yes or “they already got it”: 9b) what is that? :16c) no : 6Question 3: Why?“My older kid has autism and he was fine until he got a shot at 18 moths old, if you can’t tell me how he got it I will keep believing it was the shot”“He is a good kid, likes to follow rules. If you explain the consequences actions can have he will obey”EVALUATIONThe project had a good impact on the group it was implemented on. Out of the 22 participants that received the pamphlet 20 said they would talk to their doctor about HPV vaccination that same day. However, for future experiments recording how many patients received the vaccination after the intervention could be advantageous.In addition to this the project had a limited amount of time and a limited amount of resources. The population interviewed was very small. Also, the intervention was only done in a single pediatrics office which does not really represent the Plattsburgh population.RECOMENDATIONSIt would be pertinent to do a bigger scale campaign with many locations including pediatric offices and schools to demystify the myths surrounding HPV vaccinations and to promote knowledge about this topic since most parents did not know what HPV was or what it could cause.Many commented:“I didn’t know it could cause mouth and throat cancers”“I thought this was for teens”It would also be beneficial to ask pediatricians to report to the county the amount of HPV vaccinations they provide, and how many of the kids complete the required shots. Since some of the sources said this was a problem and others said this was not an issue it could be beneficial to determine if this is an ongoing problem or notReferencesCDC. National and state vaccination coverage among adolescents aged 13 through 17 years—United States, 2010. MMWR 2011;60:1117–23.CDC. United States Cancer Statistics (USCS) 1999–2007 cancer incidence and mortality data. Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC; 2012. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/uscs.CDC. Recommendations on the use of quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine in males—Advisory Committee on ImmunizationPractices (ACIP), 2011. MMWR 2011;60:1705–8.Aria C. Attia, Judith Wolf and Ana E. Núñez, On surmounting the barriers to HPV vaccination: we can do better, Annals of Medicine, (1), (2018).G Prue, M Lawler, P Baker and S Warnakulasuriya, Human papillomavirus (HPV): making the case for ‘Immunisation for All’, Oral Diseases, 23, 6, (726-730), (2016).CDC. Human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers. Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC; 2013. Availableat http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/statistics/cases.htm.Kjaer SK, Sigurdsson K, Iversen OE, et al. A pooled analysis of continued prophylactic efficacy of quadrivalent human papillomavirus (types6/11/16/18) vaccine against high-grade cervical and external genital lesions.Cancer Prev Res. 2009;2:868–78.PAMPHLET

HPV vaccine

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HPV vaccine

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