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Background: The global incidence of oropharyngeal cancer is increasing. Dental professionals play a key role in the detection of oral and OPC lesions that could lead to cancer. However, scientific-based HPV-OPC visual inspection guidelines are not fully defined. With sufficient knowledge and adequate training on how to educate patients about HPV vaccination, dental providers have the potential to lead HPV-OPC prevention. HPV knowledge and awareness has been reported to be low among dental student, oral health student, and oral health professional populations. Few if any of these studies have assessed the construct validity of instruments used to assess HPV knowledge and awareness among dental and oral health students and professionals. Methods: This study aimed to evaluate the applicability of a Latin American Spanish translation of a multi-scale survey evaluating knowledge, perceptions, and clinical practices regarding HPV and HPV-OPC originally developed for English-speaking populations. Internal consistencies were measured using Cronbach Alpha. Analyses were conducted in SAS Version 9.4. Results: Data from a total of 122 students, a majority of the which were female (58%), aged 18 to 29 years old (93%), and Hispanic/Latino(a)/Spanish (87%). The HPV, HPV-OPC, and HPV vaccine knowledge subscales demonstrated good internal consistency, the Cronbach’s alpha was 0.83, 0.77, and 0.85 respectively. The Barriers subscale had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.92, showing a high internal consistency. The Clinical Procedures subscale focused on factors surrounding dental students’ hypothetical clinical practice procedures and had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.80. The Scope of Practice scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.73. Conclusions: Ultimately, this survey demonstrated reliability and applicability for the assessment of dental students’ knowledge, perceptions, and clinical practices regarding HPV and HPV-OPC in Latin America.

Background The global incidence of oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) is increasing. Dental professionals play a key role in the detection of oral lesions that could lead to cancer. However, scientific-based HPV-OPC visual inspection guidelines are underdeveloped and HPV knowledge and awareness has been reported to be low among dental students and professionals. The present study adapted and performed pretesting of a multi-scale survey evaluating knowledge, perceptions, and clinical practices regarding HPV and HPV-OPC for Latin American Spanish-speaking populations. Methods A previously developed questionnaire for English-speaking dental students was translated to Spanish. The questionnaire was administered to first year dental students at two Latin American universities with dental programs. Internal consistencies were measured using Cronbach Alpha. Analyses were conducted in SAS Version 9.4. Results Data from a total of 114 students, a majority of the which were female (61%), and Hispanic/Latino(a)/Spanish (91%). The HPV, HPV-OPC, and HPV vaccine knowledge subscales demonstrated good internal consistency, the Cronbach’s alpha was 0.83, 0.75, and 0.86 respectively. The Barriers subscale had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.93, showing excellent internal consistency. The Clinical Procedures subscale, focused on factors surrounding dental students’ hypothetical clinical practice procedures, had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.86. The Scope of Practice scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.93. Conclusions Ultimately, this survey demonstrated reliability and applicability for the assessment of dental students’ knowledge, perceptions, and clinical practices regarding HPV and HPV-OPC in Latin America.