Effects of Promoting Rational Drug Use Literacy In Community Model Pak Tako Community , Chumphon Province

Abstract

     This one group pretest-posttest design action research aimed to study the effect of activities to promote Rational Drug Use Literacy in the prototype community, Pak Tako community, Chumphon province. The activities included meeting network partners and community leaders involved in the community, training activities on Rational Drug Use Literacy and health products, campaigning for Rational Drug Use Literacy in the community and installing public relations signs, and exchanging lessons learned with network partners involved in the community. The sample group was 300 people. The instrument used was the Rational Drug Use Literacy tool (RDUL) of the Health Systems Research Institute (HSRI). The internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) was  0.8917. The statistics used for data analysis were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and comparison of Rational drug use Literacy scores before and after the promotion of Rational Drug Use Literacy in the community by Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test at 95% confidence level

     The research results found that before the promotion of Rational Drug Use Literacy in the community, 50.67 percent of the sample group had an average score of Rational Drug Use Literacy of 40.37 ± 6.96, which was considered insufficient Rational Drug Use Literacy. After the promotion of Rational Drug Use Literacy  in the community, 82.33 percent of the sample group had an average score of Rational Drug Use Literacy  of 46.07 ± 4.46, which was considered sufficient Rational Drug Use Literacy. After the promotion of Rational Drug Use Literacy in the community, it was found that the average score of Rational Drug Use Literacy and the average score of Rational Drug Use Literacy increased in all aspects with statistical significance (p<0.05).

     Research recommendations The model of activities to promote Rational Drug Use Literacy in the community should be expanded and adapted for use in other areas.