College women are more likely to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, or HPV, if they think their mothers would approve of getting the vaccination, Dartmouth researchers found in a study to be published in the May 2010 issue of Pediatrics. Female college students who communicated more with their mothers about sexual health and less about moral and religious values were also more likely to be vaccinated, the study showed.
The study was authored by Megan Roberts GR '13 and Dartmouth Medical School psychiatry professor Meg Gerrard, as well as several colleagues.
The researchers took their data from the survey responses of 972 female undergraduate students, aged 18 to 25, at a large Midwestern university from 2007 to 2009, according to the study.
The survey asked standardized questions about sexual activity, knowledge of HPV and mother-daughter communication. The questions concerning mother-daughter communication were constructed to evaluate the amount of information mothers had provided about sexual health, as well as the information they had provided about the cultural, moral and religious values associated with sexual intercourse, the study stated.
The women also rated the statement "My mother would approve of me getting the HPV vaccine" on a seven-point scale that ranged from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree."
Sixty-five percent of survey respondents reported being sexually active and 49 percent reported having received at least the first of the three shots in the HPV vaccination series, which was first made available to the public in June 2006, the study stated.
After compiling the data, the researchers found that vaccination status is positively associated with the women's perception of their mothers' approval of the vaccine, their perceived risk of contracting the virus and their communication with their mothers about sexual health.
These factors along with risky sexual behavior were predictive of interest in receiving the vaccine among women who had not been vaccinated, according to the study.
Women who showed the least interest in getting vaccinated were those who had the most mother-daughter communication concerning moral, religious and cultural values related to sex, the study reported.
The study concluded that "many of these young women were old enough to receive the vaccine without their parents' consent, [but] perception of their mothers' approval and mother-daughter communication about sex were important predictors of vaccination."
The study originally surveyed 993 women, but responses from women who withheld their vaccination statuses or left more than one-third of the questions concerning mother-daughter communication blank were eliminated from the data set. The women surveyed were part of a "convenience sample" and took the survey for class credit, the study reported.
"College women in general and I would say young women in general have been understudied in HPV vaccine updates and particularly how mother-daughter relationships affect their vaccination decisions," Roberts said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "When the vaccine first came out in 2006, we could chart how the uptake changed over time."
Many recent studies concerning vaccinations have tended not to focus on older adolescents and young adults, Roberts said.
There is currently no HPV vaccine available for men, and researchers did not survey men's interest in receiving a vaccine because they "chose to focus on actual vaccination behavior," Roberts said.
Gerrard could not be reached for comment by press time.
