. 2025 Aug 22;15:30928. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-16248-2

Table 4.

Descriptive quotes for theme 3- attitudes toward cervical cancer prevention. The words in the brackets are the additions by the authors to clarify the context of participants’ quotes.

Sub-theme	Descriptive quotes
3a. Universal acceptance of HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screening	Actually, I have an aunt who had cervical cancer and had to get rid of everything. I can’t imagine what “getting rid of everything” means, but I heard that there was nothing left for having sex, which her husband disliked. When her husband disliked it, there was no family happiness anymore. Therefore, although not many people know about it [i.e., cervical cancer], it is very dangerous. When we get rid of everything, our husbands won’t live with us anymore, they will go out [to find someone else for sex]. That is related to our happiness. Therefore, I will vaccinate my daughter in the future. I think screening must hurt. People who haven’t done it before and who don’t know about it must feel pain. Screening is to check our health, check the disease, in order to treat it, prevent it, and so on. So, I compare the two pains and find that the pain after we get the disease is much worse [than the pain from screening], it is also related to our lives. Therefore, we’d better screen to find ways to treat the disease. If we detect it early, we can treat it completely.
3b. Successful COVID-19 control approaches in Vietnam should be applied for cervical cancer prevention.	We should have a media campaign [to improve cervical cancer prevention] because this disease is not only about women, we have to approach men as well so that they know how to prevent it for their wives. We should also learn the same propaganda like the one for COVID [control]. I think there should be mass media, for example, like I said earlier, newspapers or community speakers, to make it popular so that people can listen and understand how dangerous the disease is, and that they should vaccinate to protect themselves. We should do mass media like that. Then we should have the People’s Committee, local government, the Women’s Union, and community leaders to propagate to people in the community specifically so that they can understand deeply that the disease is dangerous and that they need to get vaccinated. We should encourage people to screen early. The most effective people to encourage them are healthcare professionals because they are knowledgeable and more people will listen to them. If it is possible, if the government has money, they should have [all] girls at the eligible ages vaccinated for free or reduce the vaccine price for them. For example, they should have all girls at school vaccinated. In the beginning, all vaccines are like that. For example, COVID vaccines, at first, people were afraid, but then the fear went away later. At first, they will be [skeptical of cervical cancer screening and HPV vaccination], but more and more people will [accept it].

Sub-theme

Descriptive quotes

3a. Universal acceptance of HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screening

Actually, I have an aunt who had cervical cancer and had to get rid of everything. I can’t imagine what “getting rid of everything” means, but I heard that there was nothing left for having sex, which her husband disliked. When her husband disliked it, there was no family happiness anymore. Therefore, although not many people know about it [i.e., cervical cancer], it is very dangerous. When we get rid of everything, our husbands won’t live with us anymore, they will go out [to find someone else for sex]. That is related to our happiness. Therefore, I will vaccinate my daughter in the future.

I think screening must hurt. People who haven’t done it before and who don’t know about it must feel pain. Screening is to check our health, check the disease, in order to treat it, prevent it, and so on. So, I compare the two pains and find that the pain after we get the disease is much worse [than the pain from screening], it is also related to our lives. Therefore, we’d better screen to find ways to treat the disease. If we detect it early, we can treat it completely.

3b. Successful COVID-19 control approaches in Vietnam should be applied for cervical cancer prevention.

We should have a media campaign [to improve cervical cancer prevention] because this disease is not only about women, we have to approach men as well so that they know how to prevent it for their wives. We should also learn the same propaganda like the one for COVID [control].

I think there should be mass media, for example, like I said earlier, newspapers or community speakers, to make it popular so that people can listen and understand how dangerous the disease is, and that they should vaccinate to protect themselves. We should do mass media like that. Then we should have the People’s Committee, local government, the Women’s Union, and community leaders to propagate to people in the community specifically so that they can understand deeply that the disease is dangerous and that they need to get vaccinated.

We should encourage people to screen early. The most effective people to encourage them are healthcare professionals because they are knowledgeable and more people will listen to them.

If it is possible, if the government has money, they should have [all] girls at the eligible ages vaccinated for free or reduce the vaccine price for them. For example, they should have all girls at school vaccinated.

In the beginning, all vaccines are like that. For example, COVID vaccines, at first, people were afraid, but then the fear went away later. At first, they will be [skeptical of cervical cancer screening and HPV vaccination], but more and more people will [accept it].