What is the impact of osteoporosis education and bone mineral density testing for postmenopausal women in a managed care setting?

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Vitamin D and Alendronate in the context of osteoporosis and bone density, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Who Took Part

The study group was 508 women.

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults and older adults, women only.

Participants were randomly assigned to either an education class on osteoporosis (n = 301) or education plus BMD (n = 207).

A control group of 187 women receiving no intervention were also surveyed to serve as comparison.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized study.

The women were allocated by chance, so the Vitamin D group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Group differences and differences based on BMD test result were compared 6 months after education regarding self-reported changes in health behaviors using chi2 tests and logistic regression analyses.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Alendronate, Bone Density, Calcium, Dietary, Estrogen Replacement Therapy, Managed Care Programs, Osteoporosis, Postmenopausal and Patient Education as Topic.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Vitamin D and Alendronate in 508 women in people with osteoporosis and bone density.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 9 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2001 (Menopause (New York, N.Y.)), a journal based in United States.

More context: the related Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc library page, Osteoporosis and bone density research.