Abstract:
Osteoporosis refers to a ‘silent’ systemic skeletal disease characterized with low bone
mineral density (BMD), micro-architecture bone deterioration, and increased bone
fragility. The disease has serious consequences on individuals, health system, and
society. These include high treatment cost and poor health outcomes. The main
objective for his study was to determine the knowledge, health beliefs, and attitudes
towards osteoporosis among women aged 18-52 years attending Maternal Child
Health (MCH) Clinics at Thika level V and Gatundu level IV hospitals. A crosssectional study design was conducted between June 2017 and February 2018 using
interviewer administered questionnaire with five sections of standardized questions.
Statistical package for Social Sciences software package (SPSS) Version 20 was used
to analyze data. Significant level was set at P <0.05. The mean age of participants was
28.5 years. The most common age groups at both hospitals were 18-22 years (n=118,
27.6%) and 23-27 years (n=114, 26.6%). Most participants (n=268, 62.6%) had basic
education versus higher education (n= 151, 35.2 %). Majority of the participants were
urban dwellers 163 (38.2%), then peri-urban 134 (31.3%), and rural 131 (30.6%).
Women’s attitudes towards osteoporosis were good with a mean score of 15.1± 3.9
out of 20. Age was associated with osteoporosis attitudes (p = 0.002) unlike education
(p=0.823). The mean knowledge score on the OKT was 5 out of 10. There was
significant association between osteoporosis knowledge with family history of
osteoporosis (p = 0.004), milk as source of calcium (p < 0.001), osteoporosis risk in
men than women (p = 0.004), menopause onset (p = 0.011), and effectiveness of
osteoporosis treatment in Kenya (p = 0.009) unlike other risk factors. Health beliefs
were moderately strong with an average score of 76.9± 0.4 out of 110 on modified
osteoporosis health belief scale (m-OHBS). The OHBS was significantly associated
with age (p = 0.002) unlike education level (p = 0.736). Overall, there was a high rating
for cues to action, perceived benefits, and self-efficacy, and low rating for perceived
barriers, perceived susceptibility, and seriousness among the women. There were
moderately strong and significant correlations between osteoporosis health belief and
self-efficacy (rho = 0.5789, p < 0.001), health belief and attitude (rho = 0.5364, p <
0.001), and self-efficacy and attitude towards osteoporosis (rho = 0.5935, p < 0.001).
However, osteoporosis knowledge was weakly correlated with self-efficacy (rho =
0.1376, p = 0.026) and attitude towards osteoporosis (rho = 0.2038, p = 0.0001). This
study recommends health education programs to raise knowledge level on
osteoporosis, its risks, and consequences in order to increase the health beliefs and
even attitudes, and self-efficacy among the women and the general public in order to
promote healthy behaviors for osteoporosis prevention.