If doctors recommend it, teens are more likely to get HPV vaccine

Physician recommendation was the most common reason parents began human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination for their adolescents, Brandon Brown, PhD, at the University of California, Riverside, and his associates said.

In a year-long survey of 200 parents’ reasons for agreeing or refusing initial HPV vaccination following practitioner recommendation in a California pediatric practice of six pediatricians, 82% of parents accepted initiation of the HPV series. A significantly higher percentage of parents of male teens did so, compared with parents of female teens (89% vs. 71%; P less than .01), but there were more male children (61.5%) among offspring of the study participants.

^{National Cancer Institute}

Among parents who refused initiation of the HPV vaccine for their adolescents, the most common reason for refusing (53%) and most influential reason (49%) was “I want to learn more about this vaccine,” while 25% said their child was too young to get the vaccine. Some in this latter group said they would vaccinate their child when they were older.

Of the 195 parents who answered a question regarding whether they had a friend or family member diagnosed with cervical cancer, 13% said yes. Of these parents, 92% agreed to have their child get the HPV vaccine.

Read more at Papillomavirus Research (2017 Jan 17. doi: 10.1016/j.pvr.2017.01.002).

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