The effect of the online psyco-educational program on HPV on the knowledge of HPV of university students

Sexually transmitted diseases are seen as an increasing public health problem both in our country and in the world. HPV infection is the most common viral disease known to be sexually transmitted. Especially young women between the ages of 15-24 are in the risk group. When the literature is examined, it has been seen that there are a limited number of psycho-educational applications regarding sexually transmitted diseases and HPV. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the effectiveness of the online psycho-education program prepared for sexually transmitted diseases and HPV with university student women who have not taken any sexual health education/course before. Experimental design with pretest posttest control group was used in the research. 2022-2023 Akdeniz University Psychological Counseling and Guidance Department undergraduate student 20 female students formed the sample of the study. "Knowledge Test on Sexually Transmitted Diseases" and "Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) Knowledge Scale" were used in the study. While applying a 6 session online psycho-education program on sexually transmitted diseases and HPV to the experimental group; No intervention was made in the control group. The follow-up test was applied to the experimental group one month after the post-test application. Research data were analyzed using "Mann Whitney U", "Friedman ANOVA", "Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test" and "ANCOVA". When the findings were examined, it was concluded that the psycho-education program for HPV increased the knowledge levels of university students about sexually transmitted diseases and HPV, and this increase was also significant. Follow-up test results also support these findings. No difference was observed between the pre-test and post-test scores of the control group. When the post-test scores of the experimental group and control group were compared, it was seen that there was a significant difference in favor of the experimental group. Therefore, it has been concluded that the online psycho-education application for HPV is effective in increasing the knowledge level of university students about sexually transmitted diseases and HPV. Keywords: Human papilloma virus, HPV, Sexually transmitted diseases, Online psychoeducation, University students