Dental Students' Knowledge and Attitudes about Human Papillomavirus Prevention

The purpose of the current study was to assess knowledge and attitudes about human papillomavirus (HPV) and HPV vaccination for oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) prevention in first-year through fourth-year dental students.

In this cross-sectional quantitative study, surveys assessed knowledge and attitudes about HPV, HPV-related OPC, and HPV vaccination of incoming first-year dental students (D1), outgoing first- and second-year dental students (D1-D2), and outgoing third- and fourth-year dental students (D3-D4). After completing a 40-item pre-training knowledge and attitude assessment survey, a one-time, one-hour national HPV training session was conducted. An 8-item attitudinal post-survey was completed after training.

Of 173 participants (75.9% response rate), over 85% did not know that the rate of HPV is not highest among women in their 30s, and only 11% to 28% knew that smoking-associated OPC is more deadly than HPV-associated OPC. While participants overall expressed willingness to administer the HPV vaccine, the willingness of dental students to do so in their future practice tapered off progressively through dental school year categories (p < 0.001). Among outgoing D1-D4 students, the one-hour HPV training increased participants' self-perceived ability to describe the burden of HPV disease, discuss the importance of HPV vaccination for cancer prevention, and provide needed HPV vaccination information to parents (all p ≤ 0.004).

Understanding deficits in dental student knowledge and attitudes across the 4 years of dental school may help dental educators better understand the timing and content needed for effective HPV training in the dental school curriculum to reduce HPV-associated OPC prevalence.