364 - Pediatric Dentists’ knowledge, attitudes, and predictors of HPV anticipatory guidance

Title: Pediatric Dentists’ knowledge, attitudes, and predictors of HPV anticipatory guidance 

Purpose: To evaluate pediatric dentists’ and residents’ current knowledge, practices, and attitudes towards HPV anticipatory guidance. 

Methods:  
The survey instrument was developed following a review of the literature and was adapted from Patton et al [11] with permission from the American Dental Association (Copyright © 2020 American Dental Association. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission). The survey link was emailed to 7,931 pediatric dentists and pediatric dental residents who are currently practicing/ in training and are members of the AAPD. Data analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS (v28). 

Results:
609 pediatric dentists and pediatric dental residents completed the survey. 43% of respondents were familiar with the AAPD HPV policy statement. 21.3% reported regularly (ie, more than half the time) asking patients if they are up to date on vaccinations (including HPV) and documented HPV vaccination status into electronic health records. 6.2% reported regularly providing HPV vaccination anticipatory guidance. Increased regular provision of HPV anticipatory guidance was correlated with increased familiarity with the AAPD Policy on HPV Vaccinations, agreement with receiving adequate post-doctoral training, higher HPV knowledge, higher self assessment of HPV knowledge, and greater self-reported awareness of the age recommendations for the HPV vaccination(all p < 0.05). Reasons that participants gave for not discussing HPV-vaccination included the feeling that these discussions are best left to other healthcare professionals (45.9%), time constraints (40.2%), not knowing how to address the topic (38.6%), and HPV vaccination status not being included in electronic health records (31.5%). 

Conclusions: Increased awareness of the AAPD Policy on HPV Vaccinations and increased post-doctoral training may increase the likelihood that pediatric dental providers recommend the HPV vaccine to their patients. Even with increased awareness and training, however, barriers are likely to persist.