Assessment of Osteoporosis Knowledge, Health Beliefs and Self-efficacy in Premenopausal Women in the Kingdom of Bahrain

This study aimed to measure the current osteoporosis knowledge, health beliefs, self-efficacy, preventive measures among premenopausal women in Bahrain. A questionnaire was administered to 400 premenopausal women aged 20 to 49 attending outpatient clinics at primary health care centres. There was a high osteoporosis health belief scale score regarding the benefit of exercise, calcium intake, and health motivation, but a low health belief in osteoporosis perceived severity and susceptibility. The osteoporosis self-efficacy scale mean was 78.73, lower than the cut-off point (85.8), which showed encouraging moderate responses. The Pearson correlation coefficient showed a statistically significant positive correlation between OKAT and OHBS-Susceptibility and between OHBS-subscales and OSES-self-efficacy exercise. Many premenopausal women lacked knowledge and had low health beliefs about osteoporosis seriousness and susceptibility. Efforts should be made to raise osteoporosis awareness among premenopausal women through health education intervention programs for both pre and postmenopausal age groups.