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Adolescents’ beliefs about their parents’ human papillomavirus vaccination decisions
Author(s) -
Forster AS,
Marlow LAV,
Waller J
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
bjog: an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.157
H-Index - 164
eISSN - 1471-0528
pISSN - 1470-0328
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-0528.2009.02412.x
Subject(s) - vaccination , human papillomavirus , affect (linguistics) , psychology , human papillomavirus vaccine , medicine , developmental psychology , social psychology , cancer , cervical cancer , immunology , gardasil , communication
Please cite this paper as: Forster A, Marlow L, Waller J. Adolescents’ beliefs about their parents’ human papillomavirus vaccination decisions. BJOG 2010;117:229–233. A significant minority of parents are concerned that human papillomavirus vaccination will affect sexual behaviour. We explored this issue with 162 adolescent girls. Most (between 90 and 92%) did not perceive a connection between parental consent to vaccination and parental authorisation for sexual activity, but a small percentage believed that vaccination consent implied that they were old enough to have sex (8%), or that it was okay for them to be sexually active (10%). The findings are broadly reassuring, but highlight the need for vaccination information materials to clarify why the vaccine is administered before sexual debut.