Awareness about human papillomavirus as a cause of cervical cancer and its prevention in the undergraduate female students of Karachi.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the rate of acceptance of human papillomavirus vaccine for prevention of cervical cancer, and to identify causes of its low acceptance and means of encouraging its uptake.

METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted at five different universities of Karachi, from July to December 2011, and comprised female undergraduate students. The participants, aged between 17-26 years, were in their first four years of undergraduate studies, and were selected from five universities. The distributed questionnaire included queries related to demographic information, knowledge and attitude about sexually transmitted diseases, cervical cancer, human papillomavirus and its vaccine. SPSS 20 was used for data analysis.

RESULTS: Of the 1,277 participants, 1,038(81.3%) filled in the questionnaires correctly. Of them, the awareness level regarding sexually transmitted diseases, cervical cancer, human papillomavirus, and human papillomavirus as a cause of cervical cancer was 863(83.1%), 483(51.3%), 244(23.5%), and 138(13.3%), respectively. Moreover, 200(19.3%) participants were aware of the vaccine and 13(1.3%) had had themselves vaccinated.

CONCLUSIONS: Few respondents were aware of all the three topics, i.e. sexually transmitted diseases, cervical cancer and human papillomavirus. .