الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Osteoporosis (OP) is a global health problem that is increasing in significance as the population of the world both grows and ages. It afflicts millions of people around the world. 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 study perception and preventive practices related to osteoporosis (OP) among women attending health insurance clinics in Alexandria.
Target population and study sample:-
A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 400 women in the age group (20-45 years), attending health insurance clinics in Alexandria.
Technical design:-
Data collection was carried out by a self-administered questionnaire to collect the following data:
1- Socio-demographic characteristics and reproductive data of the study women.
2- Knowledge about osteoporosis, its risk factors, and preventive factors.
3- General and specific lifestyle behaviour and practices of the studied women.
4- Beliefs toward osteoporosis and its prevention based on osteoporosis health belief scale (OHBS).
The main results of this study could be summarized as follows:
• More than half of the sample (53 %) belonged to age group 30- < 40 and more than three quarters of them (77.5%) are married. Regarding the menstrual history, great proportion of the studied women (83%) reported that their age of menarche was <15 years and the majority of them (94.2%) were premenopausal.
• More than half of women (58.0%) had fair general lifestyle habits while about (70.3%) of studied women achieved fair specific behaviour and practices related to OP.
• There were many factors affecting general healthy practices of the studied women. There were statistically significant associations between general lifestyle behavior and age of the studied women (p=0.027), there was also significant association between the educational level and the general healthy practices of the studied women (p=0.005).
• The results also showed that there were significant associations between general practices of women and their intake of calcium while pregnancy (p=0.001) and intake of calcium during breast feeding (p=0.046). Women occupation and their menopausal status also affects their general healthy behavior with statistically significant association (p=0.009 and 0.011) respectively.
• Generally there was significant association between the overall median of general healthy practices and total median HBM constructs (p= 0.000).
• There was statistically significant association between specific health practices of women and their calcium intake during breast feeding (p=0.001). There were also statistically significant associations between specific behaviors of women and women hearing about osteoporosis and suffering from chronic disease (p=0.023, 0.009) respectively.
• There was significant association between median of total specific health practices and that of total HBM score (p=0.003). Also, there was significant association between median of health motivation and specific health practices (p=0.000).
• Regarding levels of knowledge, the current study revealed that more than half (52.3%) of the women achieved fair level of knowledge about facts of osteoporosis with the mean percent of (55.73 ± 19.86 %) and median (IQR) percent score of 59.09 (42.0–72.0), while only (16.8%) had good level of knowledge. As regards to overall knowledge score about osteoporosis, it was significantly associated with educational level only.
• Mass media including internet was the most important source of information about osteoporosis among the study sample, it ranked first (63.3 %) followed by family members (31.9%) then the TV ranked third (27.6 %).
• Regarding assessment of beliefs, total HBM got mean percent score of 83.34± 9.58 and median (IQR) percent score of 82.85 (59.43). The distribution of participants’ overall beliefs shows that the majority, (77.5%), had a moderate belief level, while 22.2% had a high belief level, and only 0.3% had a low belief level regarding overall OP-related beliefs.
• There were high significant associations between the levels of overall knowledge and total HBM constructs (p=0.000).
• There was significant association between levels of general health practices and specific health practices related to OP of the studied women and levels of their self-efficacy. Also, there was significant association between levels of knowledge about Osteoporosis of the studied women and levels of their self-efficacy.
• There was significant correlation between HBM constructs, knowledge, general and specific practices and self-efficacy among women attending health insurance clinics.
Recommendation
Based on the present results, we recommend the following:
• Osteoporosis to be adopted by Government as a national public health priority through Ministry of Health.
• School and university health education programs are important for facilitating healthy life style for youth.
• Active steps to increase awareness of osteoporosis in community through mass media and digital platforms.
• Future research on osteoporosis, knowledge and preventive practices among adolescents in similar cultures since so little is known about this population.
• HBM based intervention program (pretest and posttest questionnaire)