Jiajia Ran, Xin Yang, Shaotian Li, Wen Peng

Department of General Medicine, Union Hospital, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430022, People’s Republic of China

Correspondence: Wen Peng, Department of General Medicine, Union Hospital, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430022, People’s Republic of China, Email pengwen666@sina.com

Objective: Osteoporosis, a prevalent degenerative bone disorder, and its associated complications can have a substantial impact on patients. To enhance osteoporosis prevention, it is imperative to explore the public’s awareness of this condition.
Methods: In this paper, literature related to osteoporosis awareness, which was published from October 2020 to October 2023, was searched in the CNKI, Wanfang, and PubMed databases. After the establishment of volume exclusion criteria, 16 articles were ultimately included in the analysis. Two reviewers independently extracted the study methods, tools, and results.
Results: Currently, most international research tools are questionnaires that have undergone rigorous reliability and validity testing and are extensively applied in clinical research. In contrast, in China, there is a paucity of research tools and cases, with most relying on translations of international questionnaires. The findings indicate that the awareness of osteoporosis among the general population in China and other countries is relatively low, and the awareness level in China is generally lower than that in developed countries. Currently, there are diverse measures to enhance awareness, including traditional media and online education via the Internet. All results suggest that active education can significantly boost awareness.
Conclusion: The area of osteoporosis awareness research remains relatively under - explored, and research tools need to be tailored to the characteristics of populations in different regions. Currently, there are few relevant studies, and their results consistently show that the public’s awareness of osteoporosis is relatively low. Existing evidence demonstrates that health education can improve awareness, so healthcare professionals should place greater emphasis on bone health education.

Keywords: osteoporosis, awareness, osteoporosis knowledge, systematic review, health education