Self-Disclosure of HPV Infection to Sexual Partners

Disclosure decisions of persons with genital HPV infection were examined. The research ques-tions focused on relationships among knowledge of transmission, beliefs about the obligation to disclose knowledge of HPV infection to sexual partners, factors that influence the disclosure decision, and evaluations of the decision. Participants were 92 persons diagnosed with HPV 6 months prior to data collection. Sixty-three women and 29 men whose average age was 23.1 years constituted the sample. A subset of 48 persons provided detailed information about their reasons for disclosing or not disclosing knowledge of HPV and subsequent evaluation of their behavior. Knowledge of HPV transmission was adequate; however, there was no relationship between transmission knowledge and disclosure beliefs. Participants tended to disclose the pres-ence of HPV to partners at point of diagnosis, but not to new partners 6 months later. Both dis-closers and nondisclosers felt positively about their decision. Possible changes in clinical inter-ventions for persons with HPV infection are discussed. Genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is probably the most com-mon sexually transmitted disease in the United States (Ho, Bierman, Beard-sley, Chang, & Burk, 1998). Twenty-four million people are infected, wit