a health promotion program based on the health belief model regarding women’s osteoporosis

background: osteoporosis is one of the most common metabolic bone diseases. the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of a walking education program based on the health belief model (hbm) on osteoporosis among women.   material and methods in this quasi-experimental research design, 120 patients (60 experimental and 60 control),who were registered with the health centers in fasa city of fars province, iran, participated in the study in 2014. a questionnaire consisting of demographic information and hbm constructs was used at pre-intervention, imme­diately after their intervention, and then six months later. bone mineral density (bmd) was recorded at the lumbar spine and femur prior to and six months post-intervention. data were analyzed using spss19' through 'chi-square test, inde­pendent t-test, repeated measure anova at a significance level of 0.05.   results immediately and six months after the intervention, the experimental group showed increased in know­ledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers perceived, self-effic­acy, perceived internal cues to action and walking perfo­rmance compared to the control group. six months after the intervention, the value of lumbar spine bmd t-score in the experimental group increased to 0.127, while in the control group it decreased to -0.043. the value of the hip bmd t score in the intervention group increased to 0.125 and in contrast, it decreased to -0.028 in the control group.   conclusions this study showed the increased knowledge and walking behavior regarding walking benefits could improve bone density. therefore, hbm model can be a basic framework for designing and 'carrying out' educational interventions for women’s osteoporosis.