Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Physicians Regarding Vaccinations in Yerevan, Armenia: A Case Study of HPV
This article has been Reviewed by the following groups
Listed in
- Evaluated articles (ScreenIT)
Abstract
This paper highlights the low levels of vaccine coverage and high levels of reported vaccination hesitancy in Yerevan, Armenia, that present profound challenges to the control of disease through routine vaccination programmes. We draw on investigations of hesitancy towards the introduction of new vaccines, using the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil as a case study, to interrogate underlying challenges to vaccine acceptance. We analyse primary data from the introduction of Gardasil, first used in Armenia in 2017, to investigate how levels of medical knowledge amongst physicians in 20 health facilities in Yerevan, Armenia, regarding vaccine science influence attitudes towards the introduction of a newly developed vaccine. A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was completed by 348 physicians between December 2017 and September 2018. The responding physicians displayed a respectable level of knowledge and awareness regarding vaccination with respect to some characteristics (e.g., more than 81% knew that HPV infection was commonly asymptomatic, 73% knew that HPV infection was implicated in most cervical cancers, and 87% knew that cervical cancer is the most prevalent cancer amongst women) but low knowledge and poor understanding of other key issues such as the age at which women were most likely to develop cervical cancer (only 15% answered correctly), whether or not the vaccine should be administered to people who had already been infected (27% answered correctly) and whether sexually active young people should be treated for infection before vaccination (26% answered correctly). The study suggests that the drivers of vaccine hesitancy are complex and may not be consistent from vaccine to vaccine. The Armenian healthcare sector may need to provide additional training, awareness-raising and educational activities alongside the introduction of new vaccines to improve understanding of and trust in vaccination programmes.
Article activity feed
-
-
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.06.15.21258948: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Consent: Of the 405 eligible staff at the 20 facilities, 385 (95%) were approached to participate (the remaining 20 were not available on any of the days the researchers visited) of whom 348 (90.3%) gave consent and completed the survey.
IRB: The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Yerevan State Medical University after Mkhitar Heratsi (YSMU 14.06.2016/No 10).Sex as a biological variable Using the glm function in R, nine logistic regression models were constructed to determine the odds ratio (OD) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for physicians answering at random: 1) HPV is relatively uncommon 2) Almost all cervical cancers are caused by HPV 3) HPV is most common in women in their … SciScore for 10.1101/2021.06.15.21258948: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics Consent: Of the 405 eligible staff at the 20 facilities, 385 (95%) were approached to participate (the remaining 20 were not available on any of the days the researchers visited) of whom 348 (90.3%) gave consent and completed the survey.
IRB: The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Yerevan State Medical University after Mkhitar Heratsi (YSMU 14.06.2016/No 10).Sex as a biological variable Using the glm function in R, nine logistic regression models were constructed to determine the odds ratio (OD) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for physicians answering at random: 1) HPV is relatively uncommon 2) Almost all cervical cancers are caused by HPV 3) HPV is most common in women in their 30s 4) Cervical cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers among women 5) Most people with genital HPV are symptomatic 6) Genital warts are caused by the same HPV types that cause cervical cancer 7) Sexually active adolescents should be tested before HPV vaccination 8) HPV vaccine is available for both males and females and 9) Men and women who have been diagnosed with HPV should not be given HPV vaccine. Randomization The questionnaire was administered to physicians at 20 out of 36 government-run healthcare facilities in Yerevan; the facilities included were selected at random from all those available. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Analyses were performed using SPSS software (Version 16.0). SPSSsuggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
-
