PURPOSE:
The
purpose of this paper is to explore incarcerated women's awareness, beliefs,
and experiences with human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and vaccination.
DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH:
Researchers
conducted focus groups with 45 incarcerated women in an urban Midwestern US
jail to assess how women talked about their Papanicolaou (Pap) test screening
and abnormal Pap test follow-up experiences. Some focus group questions
specifically assessed individual awareness, beliefs, and experiences with HPV
infection and vaccination. Based on these data, the authors described
participants' awareness of HPV, as well as used open coding to ultimately
extract themes related to beliefs and experiences with HPV infection and
vaccine.
FINDINGS:
While
all 45 participants reported experiencing an abnormal Pap test event within the
last five years, only two-thirds of participants (n=30) reported having heard
of the HPV infection. Several themes emerged from the analysis of the data: the
women's beliefs about cause and severity of HPV; frustration with age
requirements of the vaccine; varied experiences with vaccinations for
themselves and their children; the impact of media exposure on knowledge; and
desire for more HPV infection and vaccine information.
ORIGINALITY/VALUE:
Incarcerated
women's awareness and limited experiences with HPV infection and vaccination
may be a barrier to adequate screening and cervical cancer prevention. This
study has implications for the development of cervical health education for
this high-risk group of women, who are four to five times as likely to have
cervical cancer as non-incarcerated women
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