Background: Osteoporosis is a chronic disease affecting individual, public and social health. Few data are available about the awareness of osteoporosis in Italy. The main purpose of our study is to evaluate the perception of osteoporosis in a selected sample of subjects of different age and sex.
Methods: This is a survey involving 299 adults (aged 18-75 years) designed to assess knowledge about osteoporosis and fracture risk conducted by a multidisciplinary research team of LUISS Guido Carli University.
Results: The knowledge of osteoporosis resulted almost high among the participants (97%) and most of them considered it a disease (86.1%). Most respondents (30.5%) did not know if they might be at risk of osteoporosis, especially the youngest (43.5%). A high percentage of participants (73.8%) considered a family history of osteoporosis the principal risk factor for bone loss, while only 8.9% thought that moderate to vigorous physical activity could favor bone loss. Many women (17.4%) did not consider menstrual irregularities a risk factor for osteoporosis. As for nutrients, 79.5% and 89.4% of subjects, respectively, thought that vitamin D and calcium might be useful to prevent bone loss. The majority of sample (74.8%) did not know the public and social impact of osteoporosis.
Conclusions: Although this survey involved a selected population and, thus, it cannot reflect the Italian general knowledge of osteoporosis, it might contribute to estimate the actual awareness of osteoporosis among people, regardless of their current bone health status, highlighting areas for further educational and research efforts.