The Community Empowerment Process on Developing Dependent Older People’s Quality of Life in Chiang Muan District, Phayao Province

Abstract

The purposes of participatory action research were to 1) study the current situation of an empowerment of community 2) synthesize an empowerment process and 3) study the effects of community empowerment to development of quality of life for dependent older people. The area of ​​study was Chiang Muan District, Phayao Province. The study was divided into 3 phases. Phase 1 was the current situation study. Phase 2 was the synthesis of an empowerment model by collecting qualitative data from 3 target groups, 1) dependent older people. 2) the caregivers to dependent older people and 3) network partners. Analyzed by content analysis. And phase 3 was study of performance from quantitative data including the activities daily living (ADL) and quality of life for older people (QOL) before and after proceed from 138 dependent elderly people. The data were analyzed by statistics, frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and statistics paired samples t-test. The research findings showed that the current state of community power in the development of quality of life for dependent elderly has developed the elderly care service system both in the hospital and in the community, covering 4 dimensions ; Health Promotion, Disease Prevention, Treatment And rehabilitation. But there is no clear integration and coordination model between related parties, including the public sector, volunteer spirit, private sector, government sector And local administrative organizations. The synthesis result of the model by using the PDCA principle is divided into 4 steps: 1) The planning process (PLAN) consists of situation analysis and community operation planning and community empowerment. 2) The action process (DO) consists of the support of network partners and power enhancement of community.  3) Evaluation process (CHECK) by assessing the quality of life of dependent elderly observing community activities and visit to empowerment in the community. And 4) Improve the process by developing the knowledge of each community and have exchange of knowledge of various network partners and communities (ACT). The results of the assessment of the activities of daily living: ADL of the dependent older people with scores on moderate dependency levels both before and after the operation. Statistically significantly different at .001 for overall quality of life. The elderly who have a dependency have a moderate quality of life, both before and after the operation. The average quality of life in the overall picture increased. Their quality of life before and post engaging the project was statistically significantly different at .001 levels. The lessons learned was that: A quality health team and community must aware of their potential and abilities in order to improve the quality of life of the elderly by community network empowerment.