Adolescents seen by a resident more likely to receive HPV vaccine
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
DENVER — Adolescents seen by a resident for preventive care were more than four times as likely to receive an HPV vaccination than those seen by a pediatric or advanced care practitioner attending alone, researchers reported here.
Co-author Kelly A. Cann, MD, is a pediatric resident physician at Cohen Children's Medical Center in Manhasset, New York.
“Previous studies have investigated the impact of residency specialty on HPV vaccination recommendations, with pediatric residents having the highest recommendation rate when compared to other primary care residents and family medicine, and other studies have focused on the impact of a provider self-reported knowledge and comfort with HPV vaccination recommendations on HPV vaccination rates and their practices,” Cann said in her presentation. “But the impact of pediatric providers on HPV vaccination rates remains unknown.”
Cann said previous studies have looked at the impact of residency training type and provider age on HPV vaccination recommendations.
“However, the impact of pediatric provider type — [such as] attendings, residents, advanced care practitioners — on HPV vaccination rates is unknown,” Cann said.
Cann and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study of a random selection of preventive care encounters of patients aged 11 to 13 years seen in 22 pediatric primary care practices from January 2020 to August 2021. The researchers noted factors including appointment time and day of the week, patient race, insurance type, age and gender, and provider age and years in practice.
In the final cohort of 854 patients with a mean age of 12.6 years, patients seen by residents (OR = 4.272; CI, 1.651-11.052) and patients aged 13 years (OR = 8.021; CI, 5.037-12.775) had higher HPV vaccination rates, even after adjusting for environmental, patient and provider characteristics.
Cann said the findings made her team consider how residents implement their real-time learning in practices.
“As they learn from our lectures and our patients [about] the importance of medical care, shouldn't vaccinations be on the forefront of their mind?” Cann said. “Maybe that means that they’ll be less likely to miss an opportunity to speak with a family about HPV vaccinations, or the residents are more willing to engage in potentially controversial or political topics, which families coming in have perhaps a disenchanting experience about.
Cann closed by saying that the results “have left us with more ideas and questions for future research.”
“There’s definitely a lot of room for further exploration.”
Collapse
Cann K, et al. Adolescents seen by pediatric residents more likely to receive HPV vaccinations as compared to other provider types. Presented at: Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting; April 21-25, 2022; Denver.
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts