Factors Influencing the Risk of Osteoporosis in Menopausal Women

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Osteoporosis increase the risk of bony fracture and mortality. The global standard to diagnose osteoporosis is the bone mineral density (BMD) measurement. However the BMD measurement is very expensive. As a result, the other tools are developed to use in screening patients for osteoporosis. Therefore, the purpose of this study were to investigate the relationship between the risk of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women and personal factors such as age, income, body mass index, the use of hormone replacement therapy, osteoporosis knowledge and beliefs about osteoporosis, and to create an equation to predict the factors that affect the risk of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.

Methods: This descriptive study collected data from the voluntary postmenopausal women, who received BMD measurement under the osteoporosis care research project of Srinagarind Hospital, Khon Kaen University. The questionnaires about factors that affect the risk of osteoporosis were delivered to 280 postmenopausal women. The SPSS V.20 was employed to analyses the descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple logistic regression, and to create the predictive factors that affect the risk of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women with statistical significance at p <0.05.

Results: Age, body mass index, knowledge and beliefs about osteoporosis were significantly associated with the risk of osteoporosis (p <0.05), but income and use of hormone replacement were not statistically correlated with the risk of osteoporosis. The risk equation of osteoporosis by multiple logistic regression model could predict the risk of osteoporosis up to 78.9%.  Witch showed that this equation could explain the variation predictors 48.4%.

Conclusion: Age, body mass index, knowledge and beliefs about osteoporosis were significantly associated with the risk of osteoporosis, and can predict the risk of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.