Caregiver’s Care Behavior in Chronic Illness Children Under 5 Years *

Abstract

This survey research aimed at studying caregiver’s care behavior in children with chronic illness
under 5 years and the factors that determined the behavior. The sample was 176 caregivers who provided care
for chronically ill children under 5 years who were hospitalized at Ramathibodi Hospital. The instrument used for
data collection was the interview-schedule that was developed and tested for content validity and reliability at
an acceptable level. Data were collected by interviewing each member of the sample individually. Data
analysis was done by computing percentages, means, standard deviations, and relationship analysis was done
by using the Chi-Square test and ANOVA.
The results showed that in general, most of the caregivers performed a “moderate” level of care
behavior for these children in regard to treatment follow-up, medication, rehabilitation/stimulating development,
and mental health care (77.4%), while 22.2 percent, and 3.4 percent performed at “good” and “not good”
levels, respectively. Four aspects of the impacts of performing care behavior for children with chronic illness
under 5 years on the caregivers were found as follows: work; finance; privacy; and mental health. The impacts
were found to be at “moderate”, “high” and “low” levels (59.1%, 31.8%, and 9.1%, respectively). Besides, it was
found that the factors with regard to age, educational level, marital status, occupation, family’s economic status,
perceived severity of disease, and receiving social support related significantly with the quality of care behavior
(p<0.05). The findings of this study can be beneficial for hospitals and related organizations who are
responsible for promoting quality care behavior of caregivers of children with chronic illness, as well as for
improving health service organizations to be come comprehensive.