Level of Knowledge about Human Papillomavirus Infection among Women of Kashan City, Iran

Aims A few studies concentrate on the level of knowledge of HPV. This study was conductedto evaluate the level of knowledge about HPV, its risk factors, and its relation with cervicalcancer in women of Kashan City, Iran.Instrument & Methods This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in January2015 in the population of the women of Kashan City, Iran, and 200 persons were selectedby simple sampling method. The level of knowledge about HPV and cervical cancer weremeasured using a questionnaire with 10 questions about knowledge. The data was analyzedin SPSS 16 software by Chi-square, Exact Fisher and Kruskal-Wallis tests.Findings Most of the participants (152 persons; 76%) had weak, 26 participants (13%)had moderate and only 22 participants (11%) had strong level of knowledge about HPV.There were significant differences between the level of knowledge according to educationallevel (p=0.014) and professional status (p<0.001) but there were no differences according tomarital status (p=0.9) and age (p>0.05). In all the questions, the most frequent answer was don’t know . The participants had some knowledge about HPV causing cervical cancer (34.5%), HPV causing genital warts (38%), sexually transmission of HPV (37.5%) and increased risk of getting HPV by extramarital sexual affairs (43.5%)Conclusion The level of knowledge about HPV, genital warts, and ways of infectiontransmission and its preventions in women of Kashan City, Iran, is insufficient.

Keywords:

Human Papilloma Virus , Knowledge , Uterine Cervical Neoplasms