154 - Impact of Dental/Medical Presentation on Parental HPV Vaccine Acceptance

Purpose: The purpose was to evaluate whether parental acceptance of the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine increases when it is presented from a dental perspective in the context of oropharyngeal cancer rather than from the traditional medical perspective.

Methods: A three-part, 27-question survey based on accompanying medical and dental pamphlets presenting the HPV vaccination from their respective perspectives was administered online to parents of children aged 7 to 17 years requesting the survey link. Significant association was tested for between demographic categories and for differences in parental acceptance between the medical and dental pamphlets presented as part of the survey using Wilcoxon signed rank test, chi-squared analysis, Fisher’s exact test, paired T-test analysis, and descriptive statistics.

Results: Of the 346 people requesting survey links, 206 people began the survey, and 196 people completed it, yielding a 95% survey completion rate. The corrected overall survey response rate was 62% (189 completed of 346 surveys sent) after accounting for 7 software errors. The medical pamphlet was associated significantly with increased parental vaccine acceptance (P=.035). Increased parental education was associated with increased parental vaccine acceptance after reading the dental pamphlet (P=.021), while increased child age was associated with decreased parental vaccine acceptance after reading the medical pamphlet (P=.030).




Conclusions: Parents were significantly more accepting of the HPV vaccination after reading the medical pamphlet versus the dental pamphlet. Most parents believe it is appropriate for their child’s dentist to discuss the HPV vaccination and were unaware of the connection between HPV and oropharyngeal cancer.