The effects of an osteoporosis educational intervention on osteoporosis knowledge among college-age women

This study assessed whether college women given a multi-media osteoporosis educational program demonstrated higher levels of osteoporosis knowledge than college women not exposed to the intervention. The study also assessed the content of the questions that were most frequently answered correctly and most frequently answered incorrectly. A quasi-experimental design with one intervention group and one comparison group was employed to test the effectiveness of the educational program. Participants were a convenience sample of 123 American University female students. Findings revealed that subjects exposed to the intervention significantly increased knowledge while comparison subjects showed no change (p < 001). Findings further revealed that the majority of women were able to identify inadequate calcium and physical inactivity as risk factors associated with the disease; however they responded incorrectly most frequently to questions dealing with populations-at-risk and alcohol and its effect on bone health. A multi-media educational program appears to be effective in increasing osteoporosis knowledge among this population.