Development of Program to Self Awareness and health literacy on the prevention of falls among elderly in Tha Ruea District, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Province.

Abstract

The aims of this research and development were 1) to development of program to self awareness and health literacy on the prevention of falls among the elderly, 2) to assess the effectiveness of the program in many aspects such as health literacy improvement. Sampling by selective sampling method, resulting in 80 samples aged 60-70 years old who lived in Tha Ruea and Tha Luang municipality,       Tha Ruea district, Ayutthaya. Devided samples into 2 groups 40 each, ones had received the awareness program, another ones had improved health literacy by their owns. The research was conducted during August 2022 to January 2023 by 3 phases. Phase 1 analyzed the causes of falls among the elderly and literature reviews was done. Phase 2 developed the program and trial was performed, phase3 the full program was implemented. Research tools were : Phase 1 survey record form problem collection form and indepth interview question, phase 2 the awareness program, information, physical exercise literacy questionnaire, body balances assessment and phase 3 Timed Up and Go test. Data analysis using     content analysis for qualitative data and quantitative data using Paired T-test and Independent T-test with level of significance at 0.05.

The results of phase 1 indicate that most of the elderly fall when they do in-house activities, especially walking on uneven floors (86.70%). The places often fall were at the terrace. Regarding to the program development, the skill techniques based on Nutbeam's concept had applied ; included ability to access information, cognitive skills, communication skills, self-management skills, decisions making and media literacy skills. After program trial period performed for 10 weeks in phase 2, the full function program had implemented in phase 3. Consequence of the program revealed as follows; before applying the program, average physical exercise literacy scores for the experiment and control groups were at low level ( 46.76 % and 57.73% respectively) with had  no statistically different (p = 0.463). After applying the program, the experiment group had increased average score to 87.66%, while the control group at 55.98%, with statistically different (p = 0.049). The difference in experiment group’s mean score before and after using the program also had statistically significant (p = 0.045). Before applying the program, body balances assessment by Timed Up and Go test showed that median time of the experiment and control groups were 10.27 and 10.58 seconds respectively, with had no statistically different (p = 0.213). After applying the program, the experiment group had decreased median time to 7.52 seconds, while median time of the control group was 10.55 seconds, with statistical significance (p = 0.001). The median time in experiment group before and after using program was diminished with statistically significant (p = 0.001).