Creencias y virus papiloma humano

background: the infection produced by human papilloma virus (hpv) is a sexually transmitted disease that affects a large percentage of young women around the world. this high incidence of hpv infection is associated with early onset and greater frequency of sexual activity. although hpv infection is widespread in the world, is still an unknown infection, which is associated with cultural factors that favor the development of multiple beliefs that hinder the prevention and early diagnosis. objective: to identify, describe and analyze the major beliefs that limit hpv detection. methods: literature search was carried out in medline, pro-quest, scielo and tripdatabase metasearch, selecting 45 articles for analysis. analysis of the theme: the health education should consider cultural and social cognitive aspects of a given society and culture from which they emerge to address these beliefs with a theoretical model to support it. the beliefs identified in this review correspond to the relationship between hpv infection and cervical cancer where the association is generally recognized, beliefs regarding the risk of hpv infection associated with the level of knowledge, stoicism, denial and fatalism/familism preferably present in women who deny their illness where diagnosis and treatment are postponed for maintaining the family and others.