Information practices regarding HPV vaccination in Swedish school healthcare

In this project school nurses informing about and administering HPV vaccine is observed. Furthermore, school nurses and parents will be interviewed. The aim of the project is to gain knowledge about how information practices related to preventive medical interventions within school health care are enacted on a micro-level and how they are understood by school nurses and parents.

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted virus and HPV-vaccine is included for girls in the national vaccination programme since 2010, administered in grade 5 or 6 if the parents have agreed to it. Vaccinations are preventive medical interventions that are disputed. School nurses play a crucial role as information sources. Parents need to consider information from different sources and deliberations concerning their child’s sexual and reproductive health adds complexity. Media reports influence the decisions. Previously media coverage on HPV-vaccine as well as two school nurses descriptions of how they inform about and administer the vaccine has been studied ( Rivano Eckerdal 2015). In this project school nurses informing about and administering the vaccine are observed. Both school nurses and parents are also interviewed. The aim of the project is to gain knowledge about how information practices related to preventive medical interventions within school health care are enacted on a micro-level and how they are understood by school nurses and parents. Vaccinations are construed as an intersection where school nurses representing society, parents, children meet the vaccine as a technology that all of them need to relate to. The project contributes to research-based knowledge about health promoting information practices concerning young peoples sexual and reproductive health.