Happiness Status and Perspective on Disease Control Management amid the Situation of the COVID-19 Outbreak related to Development of Happiness Enrichment Community in the Quality of Life Management Sub-District, in the Health Area 7

Abstract

 The Ministry of Public Health has set a policy to develop communities to create happiness. The pilot was in the area of quality of life management sub-district in each province, 2 sub-districts. The objectives of this study were to study the state of happiness and factors related to the development of happy communities in 4 provinces of the health area 7, including 8 sub-districts. Quantitative data were collected in a sample of 300 village health volunteers. Qualitative data were collected in the sub-district health network group by group discussion. Using descriptive statistics and chi-square test for quantitative data analysis, content analysis for qualitative data. The results showed that most of the samples were female (79.3%), average age 52.3 years, married and living together (72.3%), highest level of education completed in elementary school (33.3%), the same as high school (32.7 %) and junior high school (30.0 %). Most of them had monthly incomes higher than the poverty line (76.0%), participated in the community development process to build happiness at a moderate level (69.7%),and found that the overall state of happiness was at a high level (74.7%). When the study of happiness was divided into aspects, it was found that physical and financial happiness were at a moderate level (78.0 and 66.7%),and mental happiness and harmony happiness were at a high level (50.0 and 66.7%). When testing the relationship between each aspect of happiness with overall happiness, it was found that all aspects were statistically related (p-value <0.05). Regarding the relationship between participation and state of happiness in each aspect, it was found that only the aspect of harmony happiness had a statistically significant relationship (p-value<0.05, r=0.234). As a result of the group discussion, it was found that the important factors affecting the success of community development for happiness were the cooperation of people in the community. having good community leaders, the availability of cultural social capital; having lifestyle according to the principles of sufficiency economy and caring for each other and support from health networks. Regarding the view of disease prevention and control work under the epidemic situation of COVID-19, it can be seen that even the community was anxious about the outbreak of the emerging disease that almost no information about the disease, but they still have confidence in the country’s disease prevention system. and they are fully committed to performing their roles as much as possible in order to effectively control the disease in order to achieve happiness and peace of the people in the community. Although happiness in each aspect seems to be slightly reduced, but still have enough happiness.