Educational Needs of Patients Suffering Osteoporosis Referring to Bone Densitometry Centers

Introduction & Osteoporosis announced as one of the great hygienic problems in advanced and also developed countries. This disease causes many problems such as morbidity and mortality in elderly people, increase medical care cost and decrease of life quality. With proper education can prevent progress of disease that in this direction, determination of education needs is first step in educational programming. The purpose of this descriptive has determined education needs of patients suffering osteoporosis referring to bone densitometry centers at the hospitals of Tehran city in 2005. This descriptive study 114 patients suffering osteoporosis were selected by stratified random sampling method and participate in study. The study settings were bone densitometry centers of hospitals. A questionnaire with 68 questions about demographic data and education needs of osteoporosis disease was used for data collection. Fisher test were used for data analysis. Findings showed that most patients (86%) need for education about osteoporosis.A significant relation was found between some demographic characteristics of patients and their education need. According to the results, it seems that clients with osteoporosis disease have an urgent need for education in this regard. so with determination of educational needs by nurses can scheduling proper educational programming for this patients and with way acquire to main attention goals that is controlling disease and decreasing complication of that.