Self-Disclosure of HPV Infection to Sexual Partners

Abstract

Disclosure decisions of persons with genital HPV infection were examined. The research questions focused on relationships among knowledge of transmission, beliefs about the obligation to disclose knowledge of HPV infection to sexual partners, factors that influence the disclosure decision, and evaluations of the decision. Participants were 92 persons diagnosed with HPV 6 months prior to data collection. Sixty-three women and 29 men whose average age was 23.1 years constituted the sample. A subset of 48 persons provided detailed information about their reasons for disclosing or not disclosing knowledge of HPV and subsequent evaluation of their behavior. Knowledge of HPV transmission was adequate; however, there was no relationship between transmission knowledge and disclosure beliefs. Participants tended to disclose the presence of HPV to partners at point of diagnosis, but not to new partners 6 months later. Both disclosers and non-+disclosers felt positively about their decision. Possible changes in clinical interventions for persons with HPV infection are discussed.

Disclosure of anogenital warts to sexual partners

“…Considering what factors might be relevant to the disclosure decision, one study suggested that disclosure of warts was more likely in longer-term than casual relationships 9. This is consistent with research in genital herpes populations 10.…”

An Evaluation of Printed HPV Educational Materials

“…[14][15][16][17][18] For this reason, information on HPV can also be challenging for clinicians to convey to patients. [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] HPV educational materials should be a viable source of accurate and meaningful information for women and should complement clinician counseling to reinforce important HPV information and to assist women with medical decision making. The purpose of this study was to formally evaluate printed HPV educational materials by determining the readability, suitability, and HPV content of existing, printed HPV educational materials selected by the authors.…”

Sexually Transmitted Infections

“…Research on the disclosure of having an STI has focused primarily on how individuals disclose their STI (Lee & Craft, 2002;Swanson & Chenitz, 1993) and their reasons for disclosure or non-disclosure (Green et al, 2003;Keller, von Sadovszky, Pankratz, & Hermsen, 2000;Lee & Craft, 2002). To date, there has been limited systematic research on whether factors influencing disclosure or non-disclosure of one's STI status differ according to whether a partner is a casual partner or a regular partner.…”