The Development Process in Participation of Healthy Public Policy of Long-Term Care for Elderly Community Dwellers in Khon Kaen Province

Abstract

This research aimed to study the development process of participatory healthy public policy for elderly in long-term care in Khon Kaen province to provide recommendations for the long-term care policies at the national level. Data were collected, from January to December 2017 through observations, in-depth interviews, focus groups and reviewing of relevant documents from 48 elderly people, 54 family caregivers, 7 care managers and 120 persons involved with the program. Qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analyses while quantitative data were analyzed using percentages, means, standard deviations and Chi–square tests.

The results showed that: first, the formation of healthy public policy was the learning of social capitals of the long-term care and the implementation problems of the long-term elderly care policy in communities. Second, the development process of healthy public policy of long-term care for the elderly in community was consisted of 3 components: building community participations, creating body of knowledge of the long-term care system, and integrating of the long-term care system with local agencies for policy movement. Third, the evaluation of the healthy public policy development for long-term elderly care was an evaluation of community participations and outcomes of public policy. It was found from this study that the process contributed to significant increases in community involvements and elderly’s access to long-term care system (p-value < 0.001).

The development of healthy public policy on long-term care for elderly with the process that encourages community participations and the collaborations of agencies’ involved with the issues will drive the implementations of the long-term care system and lead to outcomes of healthy public policy.