An Action Research to Promote Healthy Food Offering Behaviors to Monks of People in Takuapa District, Phang-Nga Province

Abstract

This action research aimed to promote behavior of offering healthy food to monks in two villages of Bangnaisee Sub-district, Takuapa District, Phang-Nga Province, thirty-two samples who were selected in accordance with the inclusion criteria and participated in this process. This action research composed of four stages; the first is planning stage or preparation stage which analysis of composed of monks’ health problem, planning health education program, and preparation before program implementation. The second is action stage or research implementation which the Health Belief Model and Self-Efficacy Theory were applied to set up five sessions in which the first three activities aimed to enhance the participants’ knowledge about healthy food offered to monks, perceived susceptibility of diseases from unhealthy food offering behavior to monks, perceived self-efficacy, outcome expectation of the benefits from healthy food offering behavior to monks and promote cues to actions. The fourth and the fifth activities were implemented by aiming to motivate the participants to offer healthy food to monks appropriately and continuously. The third stage is observational stage for evaluating the changes by interviewed questionnaire. As well the fourth stage is reflection stage for providing feedback about the outcome, problems and obstacles to target people and community. The data between before and after program implementation were analyzed by using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test.
The research outcomes indicated that after the health education program had been implemented sample group had knowledge about healthy food offering to monks, perceived susceptibility of diseases from unhealthy food offering behavior to monks, perceived self-efficacy, outcome expectation of the benefits from offering healthy food to monks, and behaviors regarding offering healthy food to monks were better than those before health education program implementation with statistical significance. (p<0.001). It is recommended that sub-district health promoting hospitals should organize campaigns and activities aimed to stimulate people in the community to offer healthy food to monks continuously both at the community and individual levels.