Abstract

Objective: In this study, it is aimed to examine knowledge and attitudes about HPV and herpes zoster vaccines among family physicians.

Methods: The study was conducted at 5th Annual International Family Practice Congress (19-23 Decembe, 2014, Antalya, Turkey) using face-to-face survey forms handed out to 263 family physicians. Statistical data has been analyzed using STATA 9.0 program.

Results: Majority of the participants (89.3%) had knowledge about HPV vaccine and 156 (59.5%) of them had been recommending the HPV vaccine to their patients. The main reason of not prescribing (50.3%) was expensiveness. It is observed that recommending the vaccine is correlated with having knowledge about the vaccine (p<0.001). The physicians who have knowledge about HPV vaccine (p=0.006) and are older than 40 years of age (p=0.016) are more likely to prescribe HPV vaccine. The number of participants with some knowledge about herpes zoster vaccine was 157 (59.7%) and 161 (65.7%) of the participants were in favor of recommending the vaccine. According to multivariate analysis, recommending herpes zoster vaccine correlates with having knowledge about the vaccine (p=0.043), being woman (p=0.03), being older than 40 years (p=0.007) and having had shingles or having a relative who have had shingles (p=0.006).

Conclusions: The key determinant of recommending HPV and herpes zoster vaccines and prescribing HPV vaccine is family physicians’ knowledge. The information level of family physicians should be increased to recommend HPV and herpes zoster vaccines to indicated patients.