The Effects of A Potential Development Program for The Village Health Volunteers Caring for Housebound and Bedridden Patients in Chumhed Sub-district, Mueang District, Buriram Province, Thailand

Abstract

The aims of this pre - experimental research were to develop and investigate the effects of community the village health volunteers on knowledge and skills in caring for housebound and bedridden patients. The 30 village health volunteers who had bedridden patient under responsibility and resided in the Chumhed municipality area, Mueang District, Buriram Province, Thailand, were recruited and chosen by purposive sampling. The study was performed on March 2021 – May 2021. The research instrument was (I) empowering program that developed strategies based on Gibson's paradigm. There were four steps as follows: 1) discovering reality, 2) critical reflection, 3) taking charge, and 4) holding on. (II) A practice manual for the volunteers according to 8 skills. (III) The knowledge assessment form and the house care skills assessment form were used by the researchers' collecting data before and after participation in the program, content validity index (CVI) by three experts were 0.81 and 0.85, respectively. The reliability of the KR-20 formula were between 0.73 and 0.86, respectively. The descriptive statistics and dependent  T-test were used to analyze the data.

The findings revealed that after participating in the village health volunteers program, their knowledge in caring for housebound and bedridden patients increased statistically significant at the 0.001 level. The village health volunteers increased their mean score of knowledge from moderate   level (x̄ = 12.97, S.D. = 1.54) to high level (x̄ = 16.07, S.D. = 2.32), and all of them passed the skill    testing for housebound and bedridden patients care at high level.