Evaluation of Activities for Consumer Protection in Health Products at District levels in Roi Et

Abstract

Objective: To study the activities for consumer protection in health products at district levels in Roi Et province conducted by community hospitals, district health promoting hospitals (DHPHs) and district health offices in 2016. Method: The researchers surveyed the activities for consumer protection in health products in 4 areas including 1) strategic management 2) post-marketing control 3) community empowerment and network strengthening and 4) database and reporting system. Data were collected by distributing the questionnaires to the subjects in charge of such activities who worked in all 269 aforementioned health institutions at district level within Roi Et, one for each institution. Results: Response rate was 65.80% (N=177). Subjects conducted activities for consumer protection in the area of strategic management more than in any other areas. Community hospitals, DHPHs and district health offices were able to conduct more than 92 percent of the activities in this area appeared in the questionnaire. Activities in the area of databases and reporting systems were the least conducted with 76-86% of the activities in the questionnaires conducted. Training of the practitioners in the following areas was needed 1) evaluation of work or summary of the lesson learnt for using as an input for future improvement of working 2) knowledge on documentation of the results from the inspection of production sites, and other relevant records. 3) documentation of the refer of information on illegal advertising or the handling of the problem 4) networking and forum for exchanging knowledge in work improvement 5) activities on training, meetings, learning with entrepreneurs and 6) Innovations in consumer protection. Conclusion: This research identified the activities of consumer protection within the province of Roi Et needing an improvement.