Situation and Performance Improvement Guidelines for Occupational Health and Environmental Medicine Services Standard Implementation among Sub-District Health Promoting Hospitals

Abstract

Sub-district Health Promoting Hospitals (SHPHs) is the main service unit to take care of people in the responsibility area. Since 2015, there were received guidelines for providing the service of occupational health and environmental medicine. According to the assessment, most of them had the standard at the beginning level. A cross-sectional study aimed to access the situation of service of the Office of Disease Prevention and Control 9, Nakhon Ratchasima in 2020. In addition, the objective aimed to develop the guidelines for occupational health services. The samples were purposively selected from 190 SHPHs that were the beginning and excellent level of development. The data were collected by using the assessment form of the Department of Disease Control. The scores were assessed for each item, individual elements, and document review. About 43 responsible persons who were at a good and excellent level of development were interviewed for more information. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics. Content analysis was accessed for each item and element. The results indicated that 190 (19.9%) of 953 SHPHs. The most of SHPHs of Buriram Province were assessed for about 98 (43.8%) hospitals, followed by Surin 55 (25.8%) SHPHs and Nakhon Ratchasima 37 (10.6%) SHPHs. The results demonstrated that 74 (39%) SHPHs were at the beginning level of development. There was a higher level. For recommendation, the guidelines should be focused on knowledge in personnel. It might be done easier and faster. Academic issues of occupational policy ( = 0.18–2.00), occupational health service at a personal level, guidelines for safety (= 1.55–2.25) should be developed. Moreover, disease investigation ( = 1.12–1.96), occupational health services for patient rehabilitation ( = 1.84–1.88), environmental medicine for emergency (= 1.58) should be provided.