Journal of Nutrition & Food Sciences
Open Access
ISSN: 2155-9600
ISSN: 2155-9600
Hala Hazam Al-Otaibi
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Nutr Food Sci
Osteoporosis is serious public health issue and can be a preventable disease. Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine osteoporosis knowledge, health believes and calcium intake in a sample of Saudi adults. Design & Subjects: A descriptive, web-based survey included 572 Saudi adults (287 female, 285 male) aged between 20 and 55 years living in AL-Hasa, Saudi Arabia were recruited by email. Methods: The Osteoporosis Knowledge Test (OKT), Osteoporosis Health Belief Scale (OHBS), and food frequency questionnaire were utilized. Results: There was a lacking in osteoporosis knowledge, with a mean total score for female (9.4+2.7) and male (8.7+2.6) out of a possible 20 correct responses. Mean scores for osteoporosis knowledge were statistically different between groups (P =0.011). Overall, subjects perceived theMSelves as moderate susceptible to develop osteoporosis and consider osteoporosis to be low serious disease with significant different between groups (P =0.02, 0.008; respectively). Subjects had high perceived benefits of calcium intake, perceived benefits of exercise, and perceived health motivation without significant different between groups. Female had significant (P =0.009) more perceived barriers to exercise (15.7+4.5) comparable to male (16.9+4.1). In addition subjects had moderate perceived barriers to eating calcium rich foods. Perceived susceptibly (R=0.161, P<0.05), perceived severity (R=0.192,P<0.01), and perceived barriers to exercise (R=-0.184,P<0.05) were significantly correlated to calcium intake among female only. Conclusion: These finding suggest that osteoporosis prevention intervention need to increase knowledge, overcome exercise and calcium intake barriers, and motivating them to healthy behaviors.
Hala Hazam Al-Otaibi was born in Damascus, Syria. She received her PhD at University Putra Malaysia Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. She is Assistant Professor in community nutrition at College of Agriculture and Food Science. She is also a member of Saudi Society for Food and Nutrition, and American Society for Nutrition .She has published more than 10 papers in reputed journals and her research interests: nutrition education, chronic diseases prevention, and obesity.