Gender Differences on Osteoporosis Health Beliefs and Related Behaviors in Non-academic Community Chinese

Abstract

Osteoporosis represents the major public health concern worldwide. The purpose of this study was to assess osteoporosis beliefs and actual performance of osteoporosis preventive behaviors in non-academic community Chinese population and to explore whether the differences exist in community females and males. A cross sectional study including 137 females and 122 males was conducted in four non-academic communities of Xi'an city during November 2012, selected by multi-stage sampling method. Self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. The respondents' mean age was 56.06 ± 5.81 years. 35.5% of the participants had a bone mineral density test. The participants exhibit relatively low osteoporosis health beliefs. The total health belief score was 63.30 ± 8.55 and 64.13 ± 6.47 in females and males respectively. There was significant gender differences in the subscales of Perceived seriousness (p = 0.03), Perceived barriers to exercise (p = 0.004) and Perceived motivation (p = 0.01). Participants had low frequencies of preventive practices. Gender differences were revealed in current smoking and alcohol intake, soybean food intake, smoking history (p < 0.001), alcohol intake history (p = 0.001), meat or egg intake (p = 0.019). The findings from the study suggest an increased awareness of this major public health problem in non-academic Chinese and the scope for enhancing osteoporosis intervention considering the gender difference.