Osteoporosis prevention in young women

To assess whether young women who participate in an osteoporosis prevention program based on the Health Belief (Rosenstock, 1966) and Self-Efficacy Models (Bandura, 1977) demonstrate higher levels of knowledge regarding osteoporosis prevention than young women who do not participate in such a program.

A classic experimental design with one treatment group and one control group was used to test the efficacy of the osteoporosis prevention program. Pretest data on knowledge, health belief attitudes (7 subscales), and self-efficacy (2 subscales) were collected in the treatment and control groups.

A convenience sample of 31 young college women were randomly assigned to an experimental group or to a control group to receive an osteoporosis prevention program.

Subjects in the experimental and control groups completed the Osteoporosis Knowledge Test, the Osteoporosis Health Belief Scale, and the Osteoporosis Self-Efficacy Scale (Kim et al., 1991) at two times. The experimental group received an osteoporosis prevention program.

Osteoporosis, Health Belief, Self-Efficacy, Women's Health.

Subjects in the experimental group had significantly higher knowledge and health belief scores after receiving the intervention than their pretest scores while subjects in the control group had no change in scores.

The osteoporosis program was effective in increasing awareness of osteoporosis prevention in this group of young women.

The results may be useful for developing young women's awareness and knowledge of osteoporosis prevention. Future research could include developing osteoporosis prevention programs at an earlier age when girls are in grade school and junior high school. Teaching health promotion strategies for bone health is essential to all women across the life span.