133. Should Pediatricians Consider Offering the HPV Vaccine to Mothers Accompanying their Children to Routine Visits?

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded the approved age range for the 9vHPV vaccine from 9-26 years to 9-45 years in 2018. However, research has still pointed to low vaccination rates among adult women. This could likely be due to missed opportunities as they must have aged out and be ineligible for the vaccine prior to the expansion. Therefore, this study assesses a better understanding of patient's (particularly mothers) preferences of receiving the HPV vaccine to provide quantitative estimates of potential vaccine uptake. Methods: We conducted a descriptive questionnaire survey among women participating in an Open-Label Clinical Trial evaluating the Immunogenicity of the 9vHPV Vaccination Regimen over 6 months among women aged 16 to 45 years old. The survey was fielded to a sample of 245 women receiving care at Boston Medical Center, who had not yet received the HPV vaccine. We used a two-sided Fisher's exact test (because >20% of the expected cell count is less than 5) to compare the responses to two closed-ended questions "If your daughter or son's doctor offered you the HPV vaccine during your child's visit, would you decide to get the vaccine?” and "Would you prefer to receive the HPV vaccine through your primary care physician instead of your child's care doctor?”. The mean and standard deviation (sd) were reported for continuous variables whereas proportions were reported for dichotomous and categorical data. All analyses were performed using SAS (9.4). Results: We had a diverse study population with a mean age of 32 years (sd=7.86), 25.75% were African American, 20.60% were Hispanics, 21.46 % were Asians, 18.88% were White and 13.31% were Others. We used cross tabulation to describe the relationship between the two variables of interest. Results indicate that 85.11% of women are willing to receive the vaccine from their child's doctor;however, are unwilling to receive it through their own primary care provider. Whereas 7.76% women preferred receiving the vaccine from their primary care physician and are unsure or unwilling to get it from their child's doctor. Also, 67.74% of women indicated their willingness to get the vaccine from their child's doctor;however, were unsure about getting it through their primary care physician. We did a two-sided Fisher's exact test of proportions of p < 0.0001 and concluded that there is a statistically significant difference between women who preferred receiving the HPV vaccine through their child's provider and women willing to receive it through their primary care provider (assuming a significance level of 0.05). Conclusions: Our findings suggest that mothers would prefer getting the HPV vaccine for themselves at their child's doctor visit, if it was offered to them. Influenza and Covid vaccines are offered to parents/guardians in pediatric offices, and this should be implemented for HPV vaccine as well. This would increase the vaccination rates, given children tend to have an increased number of visits prior to the adolescent years and parents are likely to accompany their children to these visits. Sources of Support cdc.gov.