The Basic Needs of Elderly Daycare Services at the Elderly Development of Quality of life Center in Ratchaburi Municipality

Abstract

     The purpose of this descriptive research was to study the basic needs of elderly daycare services at the Elderly Development of Quality of Life Center in Ratchaburi Municipality. A total of 303 elderly persons at the Ratchaburi Municipality from 5 elderly clubs including 100 public health agencies; health science service providers, local administration officers, community leaders and volunteer staffs of public health were selected to participate in this study by simple random sampling method. Using the questionnaire, data were collected and statistics was used for data analysis.

     The results showed that the elderly participants reported physical structure of the daycare should provide an area for doing activities together, outdoor exercise areas, indoor exercise areas, eating-room, an outdoor relaxing area, and the private bedroom segment (96.7%, 95.1%, 94.7%, 94.7%, 94.1%, and 41.9% respectively). Also they reported that the daycare services should provide health promotion activities, an ambulance for emergency service, oral health service, annual basic health assessment, and providing an informative education (98.5%, 97.4%, 97.0%, 97.0% and 96.0% respectively). Furthermore, 95.7% of the elderly participants reported that the elderly daycare was needed in their communities, also 93.4% of them showed their interesting to use it, and 93.1% of them informed that the elderly daycare was valuable for them. For the public health agencies participants reported physical structure of the daycare should provide an area for doing activities together, outdoor exercise areas, indoor exercise areas, eating-room, an outdoor relaxing area, and they were interested to have the private bedroom segment (95.0%, 92.0%, 97.0%, 95.0%, 94.0%, and 66.0% respectively). Also they reported that the daycare services should provide health promotion activities, an ambulance for emergency service, oral health service, annual basic health assessment, and providing an informative education (98.0%, 99.0%, 96.0%, 97.0% and 96.0% respectively). Furthermore, 85.0% of the public health agencies participants reported that the elderly daycare was needed in their communities, also 79.0% of them showed their interesting to use it, and 87.0% of them informed that the elderly daycare way is valuable for them. Therefore, to develop the service pattern of the elderly daycare, we should consider the stakeholders’ needs which would result in the highest benefit for appropriate development of the daycare model for the elderly people.