The System of Primary Health Care Services for the Elderly in Maha Sarakham Municipality

บทคัดย่อ

The research objectives were to study; (1) knowledge level of the elderly on primary health care services in Maha Sarakham municipality. (2) problems and requirements of primary health care services for the elderly in Maha Sarakham municipality (3) problems of the system of primary health care services for the elderly in Maha Sarakham Municipality. There were two stages of study.  The first stage, questionnaire used in survey research for data collection in 260 elderly from population of 3,332 elderly in Maha Sarakham municipality. The second stage used focus group discussion with 8 elderly using primary care services to investigate the problems of primary health care services for the elderly in Maha Sarakham municipality.The results revealed that the most of elderly were female (72.70 %), age between 60-69 years old (51.10 %), respect to Buddhism 100.00 %, the marital status with couple was 53.9 percent, living in their own houses with 100.00 %, primary education  level 71.30 %, had no work 41.10 %, their incomes more than 600 Baht/ month 87.60 %, number of family member of less than 5 persons 74.40 %, received the elderly care allowances with 84.60 %, had social attached 67.00 %, annual health check up 84.60 % and chronic sickness 58.40 % respectively. Their knowledge on primary health care services in holistic view was at high level with mean scores of 8.94 (S.D. =1.48). However, the problems and requirements in receiving primary health care services, it was found that the elderly had health problem of congenital disease and had not enough income, therefore, it made them be worry for health fee and inconvenience  to get service. They required for better health and long live with regular health care, love and care of their children.  Moreover, they wanted to participate in community activities. The second stage, results from the focus group discussion, the problems of primary health care services was the irregular working system of primary health care services, lacked of good public relation, and lacked of community participation, no evaluation system and budget insufficiency.