Effect of health belief model (HBM) - based education on the prevention of Osteoporosis in female administrative staffs of Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran

Aims and Objectives: Osteoporosis is one of the most important metabolic bone disease and health problems worldwide. The study's objective is to investigate the effect of health belief model based education on the prevention of osteoporosis in female administrative staffs in Iran. Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, 110 female administrative staffs in medical, dentistry, pharmacy, health, nursing and midwifery faculties of Guilan University of Medical Sciences in Rasht, Iran, were selected in 2016-2017. The data collection was carried out using: 1-Demographic information 2- Osteoporosis knowledge questionnaire, 3- Osteoporosis health beliefs questionnaire. Both experimental and control groups were evaluated in three stages. Results: The results of the present study showed that the majority of the studied subjects were married (84.5%), aged 35-40 (44.5%), had undergraduate degrees (62.7%), and their field of study was humanities (80.9%). Independent t-test showed that the pre-intervention mean score of all dimensions of Perceived Knowledge, Perceived Susceptibility, Perceived Seriousness, Perceived Benefits, Calcium’s Perceived Benefits, Osteoporosis prevention Perceived Barriers, Physical Perceived Barriers was not statistically significant in both groups (p>0.05), but such score was statistically significant in both experimental and control groups one day and one month after (P<0.0001). Conclusions: Findings of the research indicate that the health belief model can help to raise knowledge, perceived susceptibility, and perceived severity of the consequences and risks of a disease with an unhealthy behavior, as well as achieve an understanding of the benefits and barriers to a healthy behavior.