Assessment of knowledge and health beliefs towards osteoporosis among healthy young university students in Penang

Osteoporosis can be defined as a low bone density condition caused by bone lose. Osteoporosis characterized by a weak bone which are easily breakable even just from a minor fall. Broken bone is a serious complication of osteoporosis, especially for older. Broken bone due to osteoporosis are most likely to occur in the hip, spine and wrist. Inadequate calcium intake, significantly contribute to development of osteoporosis. Calcium is an essential nutrient for bone health. Therefore, calcium is needed for our heart, muscles, and nerves to function properly and also for normal blood clotting. In addition, regular exercise helps people with arthritis stay as strong as and healthy as possible and can reduce joint pain and stiffness. Data on knowledge of people about osteoporosis and their beliefs related to calcium intake and exercise behaviors is not well documented. Therefore this study was to assess the knowledge and health beliefs toward osteoporosis amongst undergraduate diploma students attending University Teknologi MARA (UiTM) at the Bertam Campus, Penang. Methodology: Data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire which include Demographic Data Sheet (DDT), and two reliable and validated osteoporosis-related instruments; namely the Osteoporosis Knowledge Assessment Tool (OKAT) and the Osteoporosis Health Belief Scale (OHBS). They were given about 15 minutes to answer the question without any references. From the 337 filled questionnaires we managed to collect, we screened all the data and keyed into SPSS version 16.0 software to get the result. The result was obtained by calculating the total correct answers of each students. For the OKAT, the score was categorized as; <20 (Very Poor), 20-39 (Poor), 40-59 (Average), 60-79 (Good), and >80 (Very Good). While, for OHBS is coded as 1 for strong disagreement to 5 for strong agreement.