A Study Analyzing the Intention of HPV Vaccination Among Chinese Female College Students Based on Social Cognitive Theory

Abstract

According to the statistics of the World Health Organization, cancer is an important cause affecting the life expectancy of human beings. Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers among the female population. Then a major cause of this disease in women is human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. Therefore, it is necessary to promote the popularization of HPV vaccination to prevent and control the disease, and college students should be more concerned about it as the age-eligible vaccination population. On the basis of the social cognitive theory (SCT), this study will use a questionnaire method to investigate the correlation between female college students' knowledge of HPV and HPV vaccine, as well as subjective norms, self-efficacy, and expectation of the vaccination outcome and their intention to be vaccinated with HPV vaccine. The results suggest that the SCT model is effective in explaining the intentions of Chinese female college students to receive HPV vaccination. Overall, greater knowledge of HPV and its vaccine-related aspects leads to higher self-efficacy, which in turn leads to positive outcome expectations and higher vaccination intentions, while higher subjective norms also facilitate this process. Therefore, the above aspects should be taken into account to increase the HPV vaccination rate in China in the future.