Conclusions This review indicates that it is still unclear whether patient education is beneficial and whether it has a significant and clinical ly relevant impact on osteoporosis management results .
Summary This review summarizes evidence regarding the effects of patient education in osteoporosis prevention and treatment .
Method ological improvem ent of future RCTs ( e.g. with regard to r and omization and duration of follow-up ) might yield more conclusive evidence on the effects of patient education in osteoporosis Introduction This review aims to evaluate the effects of patient education on osteoporosis prevention and treatment results .
Changes to osteoporosis prevalence according to method of risk assessment.
UNLABELLED The impact of clinical risk factor-based absolute risk methods on the prevalence of  high risk for osteoporotic fracture  is unknown . We applied absolute risk methods to 6646 subjects and found that the prevalence of  elderly women deemed to be at high risk increased substantially , whereas the overall prevalence was highly dependent on the threshold used to design ate high risk . INTRODUCTION Many groups have advocated using absolute risk methods that incorporate clinical risk factors to target patients for osteoporosis therapy . We examined how the application of such absolute risk classification systems influences the prevalence of those considered to be at high risk for osteoporotic fracture and compared these systems to one based solely on BMD . MATERIAL S AND METHODS Using 6646 subjects from the Canadian Multicentre Osteoporosis Study ( CaMos ) , a prospect i ve , r and omly selected , population -based cohort , we assessed three different systems for determining prevalence of high risk for osteoporotic fracture : a BMD-based system ; a simplified risk factor system incorporating age , sex , BMD , and two clinical risk factors ; and a comprehensive system , incorporating age , sex , BMD , and seven clinical risk factors . The 10-year absolute risks of incident fragility fracture were compared across systems using three different high-risk thresholds . RESULTS The prevalence of a T score < or = -2.5 was 18.8 % ( 95 % CI : 17.7 - 19.9 % ) in women and 3.9 % ( 95 % CI : 3.0 - 4.7 % ) in men . Using a 15 % 10-year risk of fracture threshold , the prevalence of women at high risk increased to 46.9 % ( 95 % CI : 45.4 - 48.4 ) and 42.5 % ( 95 % CI : 41.1 - 43.9 ) when the comprehensive and simplified risk factor classification systems were used , respectively . Using a 25 % 10-year absolute risk threshold , the prevalence of high risk was similar to that of the BMD-based system , whereas the 20 % threshold gave intermediate rates . All thresholds analyzed result ed in an increased prevalence of  older women  at  high risk for fracture , whereas only the 15 % 10-year risk of fracture threshold result ed in an increase in the prevalence of men at high risk . CONCLUSIONS The application of risk factor-based systems results in an increased prevalence of older women at high risk  . The prevalence of individuals at high risk may increase with changes to the methods used to determine those who are eligible for therapy . These data have important implication s for the pattern of care and costs of treating osteoporotic fractures
Conclusions This review indicates that it is still unclear whether patient education is beneficial and whether it has a significant and clinical ly relevant impact on osteoporosis management results .
Summary This review summarizes evidence regarding the effects of patient education in osteoporosis prevention and treatment .
Method ological improvem ent of future RCTs ( e.g. with regard to r and omization and duration of follow-up ) might yield more conclusive evidence on the effects of patient education in osteoporosis Introduction This review aims to evaluate the effects of patient education on osteoporosis prevention and treatment results .