Given the objective to determine how HPV infected adolescent females are affected by the perception of clinicians on cancer treatment options, research survey questions have been designed for the qualitative part of the study. These research questions were aligned to the hypothesis that radiation and chemotherapy are among the best options to treat females who are infected with HPV. Factors such as level of understanding about HPV and its relation to sexual activities along with those that influence the decision of clinicians regarding treatment options of infected adolescent females and how the health of adolescent females are compromised based on these clinical decisions will be explored.
Participants and Recruitment
In this study 109 female participants of adolescent under the age bracket 15-19 years old will be recruited from the chosen institution[s]. HPV infected adolescent female patients identified through hospital data records and public health records will be sampled randomly through a draw lots system. Selected participants will be sent a letter of invitation and an informed consent form to confirm their participation in the survey. Upon acknowledgement chosen participant will be given survey forms. These forms will be answered individually in a classroom type setting on a preferred schedule so that any clarification to the questionnaires will be immediately explained by the survey facilitator.
Information given by participants will be sorted and encoded into Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for data analysis.
Survey Instrument
The survey question design will be developed based on literature review and feedback from the experts. Drafted survey questionnaires will be submitted to the review committee and a pre-survey will be conducted to selected respondents to test if the survey forms will be appropriate to the target respondents (i.e. if the question can be easily understood). Also in the event that drafted questionnaires will require revisions, the final version of the survey form will be implemented to the target respondents.
During the survey, adolescent women will be introduced to the human papilloma virus to include relevant information on the nature of the virus, mode of transmission, illnesses related to the virus particularly the role of the virus to cancer. Patients will also be given information on the available treatment and prevention methods to combat HPV. Open ended questions will be given to the perception and beliefs of clinicians regarding appropriate treatment methods on cancer related HPV infected patients and also to questions requiring further elaboration from both clinicians and patients. Likert scales will be used to determine the level of knowledge of patients on human papilloma virus. Demographics such as age, location, nutrition and diet, frequency of sexual activity and other factors which determines the mode of transmission of HPV to include both the attitudes of patients and clinicians towards HPV will also be assessed using a Likert scale.
Survey Response Rate
Adapting Ogilvie et al. (2013) method, the study will also consider survey response rates based on the standards of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. Survey responses of patients will also be reviewed if it is complete. In the event that there is a duplication of completed surveys, only the first completed survey will be considered valid and the second one will be void. Response rate of participants is defined as the ratio of the total number of complete surveys over the number of returned questionnaires to include the non-interview portion of the questionnaire. In this study the response rate for both clinicians and patients will be the number of surveys completed in proportion to the number of surveys plus the number of questions that were not answered.
Data Analysis
The main goal of this study is to determine how HPV infected adolescent females are affected by the perception of clinicians on cancer treatment options. In order to achieve this goal, both descriptive and bivariate statistics will be employed in this study. All statistical analysis will be inputted in the SPSS software.
The purpose of descriptive analysis is to give the public a general overview of the demographics and general assessment of the perceptions and attitudes of the respondents (Larson, 2006) towards HPV and the extent of knowledge of HPV infected patients on the link between HPV and cancer. Measures of central tendency such as mean and median will be used for age, education, frequency of sexual activity, sexual history, race and ethnicity, geographical location, and nutritional and health habits. Further the computed mean value and standard deviation of parameters will be used for bivariate statistics. The results obtained in descriptive analysis will also be compared to other related previous studies.
Bivariate statistics particularly correlational analysis will be used with a confidence interval of 95%. The purpose of this test is to determine if the is a linear relationship between the survival rates of patients to the clinical perceptions of doctors regarding treatment strategies against cancer related HPV diseases. It also aims to determine if such linear relationship exists between demographic factors such as age, frequency of sexual intercourse, history of sexual intercourse, health and nutritional habits, knowledge about HPV transmission and other factors related to the acquisition of HPV to the present health condition of adolescent women. Since the data that will be collected involve a scale level of measurement, Pearson Correlation was selected. The dependent variable would be survival rate of adolescent cancer patients and the risk of HPV transmission on adolescent women. The independent variable in this study would be the aforementioned identified factor affecting cancer related HPV risks and aggressive treatment options affecting survival rate such as vaccine, chemotherapy, colposcopy, surgery and radiotherapy or the combination of all treatment options. Student’s t-test will be used with a 95% confidence level to determine if a defined factor significantly contributes to the variations within the correlation model.
Expected Findings
Apart from the general overview of the demographics who are afflicted with cancer related HPV disorders, results indicating the prevalence of HPV in relation to the defined factors will be expected. In theory it is also expected that recommended treatment options will likely affect the survival rate of the patients and that there will likely be a strong correlation existing between the attitudes and perceptions on HPV and the level of risks involved among patients.
References
Larson, M.g. (2006). Statistical Primer for Cardiovascular Research: Descriptive Statistics and graphical Displays. Circulation, 114: 76-81.
Ogilvie, G. S., Smith, L, W., van Niekerk, D. J., Khurshed, F., Krajden, M., et al. (2013). International Journal of Cancer, 133: 2934–2943.
