Prevalence of Osteoporosis among Adults in a Tertiary Care Hospital: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

• Main Authors: Shriraj Shrestha, Saurav Dahal, Parash Bhandari, Suraj Bajracharya, Anurag Marasini
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Nepal Medical Association 2019-12-01
• Series: Journal of Nepal Medical Association
• Subjects: body mass index; osteoporosis; prevalence
• Online Access: http://www.jnma.com.np/jnma/index.php/jnma/article/view/4753
• ISSN: 0028-2715; 1815-672X

Introduction:  Osteoporosis is a common metabolic bone disease characterized by increased bone fragility, yet underdiagnosed and undertreated. With the increase in longevity of the populace, it is becoming an urgent and serious global epidemic. This being a preventable disease, has no clinical manifestations until there is a fracture. Early diagnosis and treatment are of dire necessity. Hence the aim of our study is to find the prevalence of osteoporosis among adults attending a tertiary care hospital-based on calcaneal quantitative ultrasound. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was done in a tertiary care hospital, from 15th July 2019 to 15th October 2019 after receiving ethical approval from the Institutional Review Committee (Registration number: 2075 / 76 / 119). Convenient sampling was done. Data collection and entry was done in Microsoft excel, point estimate at 95% Confidence Interval was calculated along with frequency and proportion for binary data.    Results: Out of 464 participants the overall prevalence of osteoporosis was 38 (8.2%) at a 95% confidence interval (5.7-10.7). Among the participants, 141 (30.4%) were male and 323 (69.6%) were female. The mean age of the participant was 41.02±14.96 years. Osteoporosis was more common in the older age group 11.66 (30.7%) in 60 years above Women were found to be more osteoporotic than men, 3.42 (9.0%) and 2.43 (6.4%) respectively. Bone mineral density and osteoporosis had a bimodal distribution, underweight 5.01 (13.2%) and obese group 5.32 (14.0%) were the two peaks. Conclusions: The prevalence of osteoporosis in our study is high and is consistent with other South Asian studies. Early detection of osteoporosis using calcaneal quantitative ultrasound can be a good screening tool.