Observational study reveals awareness of high HPV prevalence reduces feelings of stigma and anxiety in women, suggesting normalising the infection mitigates negative psychological outcomes.
Raising public awareness of the sexually transmitted nature of HPV has the potential to increase women's feelings of stigma and shame if they test positive for the virus. However, our findings suggest that ensuring women's awareness of HPV being common may reduce these feelings and also reduce anxiety, perhaps by "normalising" the infection.
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Waller et al. (2006) studied this question.
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