| Abstract
Introduction: Increasing prevalence of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) infection and its association with
cervical cancer as a leading cause of death make it necessary to evaluate and improve the public knowledge,
especially university students’ knowledge about thisdisease. Methods: A cross-sectional study Knowledge and
attitude of a total 669 students from Tabriz University of Medical Sciences was checked by a modified validated
questioner in July 2011. The questionnaire was arranged into 5 parts and contains 55 questions. Questions
were directed to study socio-demographic characteristics of the participant, knowledge about HPV disease,
transmission route, relationship with cervical cancer, predisposing factors, and participants’ attitude toward
people with HPV infection. Results: All of the participants were Moslem with mean age 25.59±5.33 years of age.
All of the participants had heard of HPV, and acquired their knowledge trough university courses (90.6%);
majority of them knew that HPV is a sexually transmitted disease and potential cause for genital warts but
general knowledge about details was not high. Mean knowledge score of residents and post graduate midwifery
and nursing students was higher comparing to other groups (P<0.001). Statements that indicated the presence of
fear to communicate with people suffering HPV and people’s avoidance to rely on babysitting of these patients
were observed. Educational level (β=0.21, P<0.001), age (β=0.18, P=0.002,), and smoking (β=-0.11, P=0.006) were
predicted to effect knowledge. Conclusions: Moderate level of knowledge about HPV among medical university
students makes it necessary to set effective national public health efforts on HPV education and prevention
considering excess of young population in Iran vulnerable to cervical cancer. |