Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

Fall 2020

Program/Event

Medical Education Research Awards

Abstract

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES FOR HPV VACCINATION DISCUSSION AMONG MEDICAL TRAINEES

Jahnavi Sunkara, BA Candidate; Emily J Noonan, Ph.D., M.A; Laura A. Weingartner, Ph.D., M.S.Abstract

BACKGROUND

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States and can cause serious health problems like genital warts and cancer. However, vaccination can prevent some of these issues. Although the CDC recommends that individuals between 9-26 years old should receive the HPV vaccine, catch-up vaccination until 45 years old is available upon further guidance from healthcare providers.

METHODS

Standardized patient (SP) encounters (n=28) were randomly sampled from 134 video recordings of rising third-year medical student trainees. Students were prompted to take a patient history for a 32-year-old seeking to establish primary care who had not seen a physician in over a decade. The content of discussions regarding general and HPV vaccinations were coded for recommendation(s), rationale, and who prompted the discussion.

RESULTS

Medical trainees prompted the general vaccination discussion only 32% of the time and the HPV vaccine was discussed in only 22% of encounters. Of the patients who were recommended to get an HPV vaccine (n=4), all were assigned female at birth. The most commonly cited reason for not providing a vaccine recommendation was no vaccination records (71%).

DISCUSSION

These data illustrated gaps in HPV and general vaccination discussion among medical trainees, including missed opportunities to discuss HPV vaccination with patients who are assigned male at birth or who have not received care since before the vaccine’s debut. These trends may be reflected in primary care settings, and we thus recommend that routine vaccination history/discussion include the HPV vaccine for new patients establishing care.

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