Factors Associated with the Consumer Protection Implementation of Village Health Volunteers in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province

Abstract

The objectives of this survey research were to study the relationship between personal factors, knowledge of consumer protection, work support factors, and the consumer protection implementation of village health volunteers (VHVs) in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province. The population were 28,499 VHVs in Nakhon Si Thammarat province. The 553 samples of VHVs was selected by Multi-stages random sampling technique. The instrument of this study was a questionnaire, with a reliability values of knowledge of consumer protection, work support factor, and consumer protection implementation 0.87, 0.88, and 0.89, respectively. Statistics used for data analysis were percentage, mean, standard deviation, Chi-square test, and Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient. The results revealed that the majority of samples were female, with average age of 47.4 years, agriculturist, having an average income of 8,598.19 baht per month, finished primary school level, married, Buddhism, and having average working duration of 11.4 years. Knowledge of consumer protection was at a low level. Work support factors and the consumer protection implementation of VHVs was at a moderate level. The personal factors include religion, work duration, and age of VHVs were positively and statistically significantly related to VHVs’ consumer protection implementation at a level of 0.05. Work support factors were positively and statistically significantly related to the consumer protection implementation at a level of 0.05. The recommendations from this study were that to empower VHVs for advising the consumers about choosing cosmetics products, hazardous materials, and knowledge dissemination, and supporting VHVs’ leadership development, to team building, achieve self-reliance in the community. The suggestions from this study were that the empowerment for VHVs to advise the consumers on cosmetics and hazardous materials, should be done, including knowledge dissemination, and leadership development among VHVs to build team, self-reliance for career and income in the community..