Abstract

Background: Most of the population in Saudi Arabia do not use a good source of information to obtain sufficient knowledge about the disease, which predisposes them highly to the risk of osteoporosis. Therefore, we conducted a study to know the awareness, knowledge, and source of information about osteoporosis among females in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia.
Methodology: A cross-sectional study with a stage sampling technique was conducted in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia to evaluate the awareness, knowledge, and sources of information on osteoporosis and its related risk factor among women aged 18 years and above. The survey was distributed and published in social media. The associations between knowledge and socio-demographic characteristics of participants were tested using independent t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests. ANOVA tests were followed by Tukey’s post-hoc test. The level of significance was set at 0.05.
Results: A total of 1,100 females filled the survey. There was no significant difference in knowledge score between age groups, place of residency, or educational level. However, a significant difference in the mean score of knowledge was present across the income level. Although 63.6% of the participants had a bachelor’s degree and 2.4% had an education higher than that, 60.3% had poor knowledge, 37.5% had a moderate experience, and only 2.3% had high knowledge. Most of the participants do not trust their source of information, but they were using it either way; the commonest sources were the internet (61%), social media (41.1%), and healthcare providers (28.5%).
Conclusion: Most of the females in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia do not have sufficient knowledge about osteoporosis. The source of information among the majority was from the internet.

Key words: Osteoporosis, females, knowledge, awareness, risk factors