الفهرس 
Definition of osteoporosisOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Osteoporosis has become recognized as a problem with a significant impact on the health of the world’s population. It is a problem that is not limited to Western countries, but has become a global issue.
Osteoporosis is a silent disease as it is often not diagnosed until an individual presents with a low impact fracture. Education to increase awareness of risk factors and preventive behaviors is identified as being paramount in helping to prevent the onset of this disease later in life.
Aim of the study:-
The presented study was designed to assess the knowledge, and beliefs on osteoporosis and its prevention among the female students of Tripoli University -Libya.
Target population and study sample:-
A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 375 female students selected by using stratified random sample and proportional allocation method representing all educational grades in the Faculty of Sciences (four grades) at Tripoli University – Libya.
Exclusion criteria:
• Medical faculties
• Physical exercise college.
Technical design:-
Data collection was carried out by a self-administered questionnaire to collect the following data:
1- Socio-demographic characteristics of the study sample.
2- Knowledge about osteoporosis, its risk factors, and preventive factors.
3- Beliefs toward osteoporosis and its prevention based on osteoporosis health belief scale (OHBS).
Results:-
A- Socio-demographic characteristics:
The main socio-demographic characteristics of the study sample showed that, more than half of the students (56%), were twenty to twenty-four years with mean age of 20.60 ±2.19 years. As for the academic grades, first year ranked first with the highest percentage of students (33.6 %), followed by the second year (26.4), and fourth year (20,8%) while third year ranked last (19.2%) . Most of the students have no family history of osteoporosis (93,1%), and only (6,9%) of the students have relatives living with osteoporosis . Less than one third of the sample (29%) had professional fathers, and about one third of the sample (32%) had employed fathers, about one quarter of the sample had craft fathers, and only (14.3%) of the sample their fathers were retired, more than half of the sample had highly educated fathers, and only 1.9% of the study sample had illiterate fathers. About two thirds of the sample (69.1%) had unemployed mothers and only one third (30.9%) had an employed mothers, more than one third of the sample had highly educated mothers and only 8.8% of the sample had illiterate mothers.
B- Students’ knowledge about osteoporosis:
Generally speaking, about two thirds of female students (68%) showed fair level of knowledge, while only (3.2 %) showed good level of knowledge, and those with poor level of knowledge constituted (28,8 % ) of all students .
The results showed that general knowledge regarding risk factors of the disease was present, but specific in-depth knowledge regarding each risk factor was lacking.
Knowledge related to preventive factors showed poor level among (58.9%) of the study sample, and only (6 %) of the female students had good knowledge regarding preventive factors of osteoporosis
As regard to overall knowledge score about osteoporosis, it was significantly associated with only age, academic grade, and job of the father.
The results revealed that academic grade was the only predictor of the overall knowledge about osteoporosis among the study sample.
C - Sources of information about Osteoporosis
TV was the most important source of information about osteoporosis among the study sample, TV ranked first (44.5 %) followed by family members (26.o %) then the internet ranked third (16.3 %) while friends ranked the last source of knowledge about osteoporosis (13.1 %).
D – Students’ health beliefs toward osteoporosis:
With regard to the overall beliefs toward osteoporosis, the majority of the female students (87.7%) showed neutral beliefs while only (12%) had positive beliefs. However, female students with positive beliefs toward benefits of physical activity constituted (82.1%) of all the female students.
The total beliefs toward osteoporosis in univariate analysis, was significantly associated with only academic grades.
The belief score of perceived susceptibility to osteoporosis was only significantly associated with family history of osteoporosis (t = 3.457, p = 0.001).
With regard to the female students who had good knowledge about osteoporosis, most of them (75 %) had neutral beliefs, 25 % had positive beliefs, and no one had negative beliefs toward osteoporosis. Regarding female students who had fair level of knowledge about osteoporosis, 87.8 % had neutral beliefs, 11,8 % had positive beliefs, and only o.4 % had negative beliefs toward osteoporosis. There was no significant association between the levels of overall knowledge and levels of overall beliefs toward osteoporosis (p = 0.501).
Correlation analysis reveals that age is significantly correlated with dietary calcium intake (r =0.114; p =0.028).
Concerning the Susceptibility to osteoporosis, it is significantly negatively correlated with dietary calcium intake. (r = - 0.146, p = 0.005).
Both benefits of calcium intake and exercise, are significantly correlated with dietary calcium intake. In other hand both barriers to calcium intake and exercise shows inverse correlation with dietary calcium intake.
Concerning barriers to exercise, it shows negative correlation with regular exercise, (r = -0.102, p = 0.049).
There is no significant correlation between total knowledge, and total beliefs with dietary calcium intake and regular exercise. Correlation analysis within OHBS subscales found a significant negative correlation between perceived barriers to physical activity and perceived benefits of physical activity (r = -0.238; P = <0.001). Therefore, those female students who perceived great benefits of physical activity also perceived fewer barriers to physical activity.
Recommendations
1- General recommendations:
A- Osteoporosis to be adopted by Government as a national public health priority with funding through Ministry of Health.
B - School health education programs are important for facilitating healthy life style for youth.
C- Active steps to increase awareness of osteoporosis in community through mass media.
2- Proposed health education program for osteoporosis prevention:
The program is suggested for raising the awareness of the university female students about osteoporosis, and help them to develop a positive attitude and build skills for adapting a healthy life style for prevention of osteoporosis. The program will be covered in 4 educational sessions through a group discussion and some audio-visual materials.
3– Further researches:
Future research on osteoporosis prevention should focus on a younger population, and different age groups. Males should be included as study participants because although they are at lower risk of developing osteoporosis, men could benefit from knowledge about bone health.