Factors Associated with a Health Care Selection by Folk Medicine in Chiang Sean, Chiang Rai Province

Abstract

Seeking and selecting human’s disease treatment is behavior that has existed since ancient times. In Thailand, there are various health care services. One of them is folk medicine which is a valuable wisdom and has been with Thai people for a long time. This is worth preserving. This cross-sectional survey study aimed to investigate the factors related to folk medicine health care selection by the people in Chiang Sean, Chiang Rai province between February and December 2020. The data were collected from 333 samples. using interview forms, knowledge questionnaire, belief questionnaire and the health care selection questionnaire that passed quality inspection according to specified criteria. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Chi-square independent test).

The results of the study found that 58.6 percent of the samples were female, 38.4 percent of the samples were aged 60 or over, 61.9 percent of the samples were married, and 45.9 percent of the samples were farmers. Socio-demographic characteristic factors found that gender, age, status, and main occupation were significant related with folk medicine health care selection (P<0.05).  The belief in folk medicine was found to be significantly related to folk medicine health care selection (P<0.05). While the knowledge in folk medicine, there was no significant related with folk medicine health care selection (P>0.05). Thus, the suggestion was that the relevant departments should promote relevant beliefs according to theoretical principles to achieve selecting health care services with folk medicine, to make it exist and not be lost by changing time.