Journal of Antivirals & Antiretrovirals
Open Access
ISSN: 1948-5964
ISSN: 1948-5964
Jennifer Jeaan Buechel
University of San Diego, USA
National Naval Medical Center San Diego, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Antivir Antiretrovir
High HPV incidence rates occur in military and are one of the leading medical events in the armed forces. Although there are high HPV rates in uniformed personnel; the U.S. military reports lower vaccination uptake rates than the national average. Our aim is to describe the general HPV knowledge, HPV testing knowledge, HPV vaccination knowledge, HPV vaccine uptake, and socio-demographics, describe the relationship between HPV knowledge, HPV vaccine uptake and socio-demographics and identify select variables accounting for variance in HPV vaccine uptake among U.S. Navy personnel ages 18 to 26 years. The cross sectional, correlational research design used an Internet delivered survey. Participants were U.S. Navy, Active Duty or Reservists stationed in San Diego, California. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the results. There were 223 respondents: Mean age was 22.45 (SD=2.13), the majority was white (53.9%) and single (32.8%) and 96 (41.2%) had obtained the vaccine. Mean scores for HPV general knowledge, HPV testing knowledge and HPV vaccine knowledge were average to low. Participants who were older, white and female with a higher pay grade had received the vaccine, heard of HPV testing, served longer in the military and were U.S. born had a higher overall HPV knowledge (p<0.05). Four factors significantly explained the variation in HPV vaccine uptake: Gender (OR=4.52), learned about the vaccine from providers or media (OR=0.17), believed their chain of command recommends the vaccine (OR=11.11) and HPV vaccine knowledge scores (OR 1.46) (p<0.01).
Email: jenbuechel@yahoo.com