Objective To study the impact of brief intervention on HPV cognition of medical students in Xinjiang, and to provide a reference for the development of HPV related education in medical students. Methods Sudents from 20 classes of a medical university in Xinjiang were randomly selected. The first 10 classes were enrolled into group 1, which was a self-controlled study group evaluating the effect before and after intervention. The other 10 classes were included in group 2, in which students in each class were randomly divided into control group (filling in questionnaires before the intervention) and intervention group (filling in questionnaires after the intervention). Medical students were given a 10 minutes presentation on the intervention of HPV by trained personnel. Results (1) For HPV related knowledge, the difference in the awareness rates between the two groups before and after intervention was statistically significant (P < 0.001), and the awareness rate after intervention was higher than that before intervention. Before the intervention, the awareness rates of medical students in group 1 and group 2 were 18.67% and 17.71%, respectively, which increased to 66.75% and 52.85% after the intervention (P<0.01). (2) Regarding HPV-related attitudes and behavioral content, the differences in the response results of the two groups of students before and after the intervention were statistically significant (P<0.05), showing a more positive state after the intervention. Before the intervention, there were 86.19% and 88.02% of the students in group 1 and group 2 willing to publicize HPV-related knowledge to their relatives and friends, and the numbers increased to 94.12% and 94.82%, respectively, after the intervention (P < 0.05). Conclusion Both self-controlled and parallel-controlled studies demonstrated that brief interventions improved medical students' awareness of HPV.