Investigation of the HPV vaccine, Gardasil: Are patients completing the series as recommended?

Purpose: The quadrivalent HPV vaccine is recommended for persons age nine to 26 and should be given as a three dose series. Due to the number of injections and the high cost of the vaccine, many people may not complete the series as recommended. The primary objective of this retrospective chart review study is to determine if patients at the Wood County Health Department are being administered the complete vaccination series as recommended and the secondary objective is to identify common barriers to compliance.

Methods: Data was gathered and formatted from the Impact SIIS database into a Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet to record series completion, demographics, and potential barriers. Medical records were analyzed for any patients who did not receive the full series.

Results: Overall, only 13% of patients completed the Gardasil vaccine as recommended, compared to 32% of patients nationally. The most common barrier identified for not completing the series was pregnancy. Specific barriers were unable to be identified for most patients due to poor documentation in the patient chart.

Conclusion: The inability to identify barriers demonstrates the need for improvement in patient documentation and organization of patients’ health records at this site. Additionally, a patient compliance program at the health department should be developed to improve HPV vaccination rates.