Graduate and Health Professional Student Knowledge, Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behavior Related to Human Papillomavirus and Human Papillomavirus Vaccination: A Scoping Review of the Literature

Abstract

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a common sexually transmitted infection. Despite a safe and effective vaccine, uptake continues to be suboptimal. Recently, focus has moved to college campuses in an effort to increase vaccination rates. Little is known about the extent of efforts to reach graduate students on college campuses in the United States and the vaccination rates within this subpopulation. This scoping review assessed the literature on knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors about HPV and HPV vaccination among graduate and post-baccalaureate professional students in the United States. This review also aims to identify areas for further research to improve institutions’ abilities to create health programming to increase HPV awareness and HPV vaccination coverage on their campuses. Publications focusing on knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors about HPV and HPV vaccination in post-baccalaureate students were included. The systematic review of PubMed, CINAHL, and Embase identified 2562 articles, and 56 articles met all inclusion criteria and were included in this scoping review. A majority of the reviewed studies investigated some combination of knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs about HPV and the HPV vaccine in students in professional programs such as medicine. Study design approaches were primarily cross-sectional, utilizing web-based survey distribution methods. HPV vaccination status and HPV screening behaviors were primarily measured through participant self-report. There is limited research investigating post-baccalaureate student knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors about HPV and HPV vaccination. There is a need for researchers to further investigate the needs of graduate students to create informative and effective HPV programming.