Effects of human papillomavirus vaccination education on college women's knowledge, health belief, and preventive behavior intention

Purpose: This study was done to evaluated the effects of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination education on college women's knowledge of HPV, health beliefs (perceived severity and perceived susceptibility), and preventive behavior intention. Methods: A nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design with repeated measures was used. Participants were 125 female college students in one university, assigned to an experimental group (72 students) and control group (53 students). Results: Two weeks after the intervention, the experimental group reported higher scores of knowledge, perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, and preventive behavior intention than the control group. All follow-up scores except intention measured at 5 weeks after the intervention from the experimental group remained still higher than those from the control group. Conclusion: The results suggest that the variable of preventive behavior intention which is believed to be the closest predictor of real vaccination rate could be affected by the education, but did not remain at the same level at 5 weeks. Therefore, additional interventions may need to be provided before the educational effect on preventive behavior intention is greatly diminished.