Influences of Family Function, Social Support and Self Esteem on Virtue of the Young Volunteer-Spirits: A Case Study of Community Hospitals in Nonthaburi Province

Abstract

         The objectives of this survey research were to study family function, social support, and self esteem and influences on virtue of 413 young volunteer-spirit students in five the community hospitals  in Nonthaburi Province by using questionnaires duing January-February 2008. Statistical methods employed were descriptive and multiple regression analysis with stepwise method. It was found that the family function, social support, self esteem and virtue of the young volunteer- spirit students in the community hospitals were at high levels. The factors included self esteem in competence dimension, family function in behavior control dimension, self esteem in virtue dimension, social support in information support from school, family function in problem solving dimension, social support in instrumental support from hospitals had influenced on their virtue at the 0.001 level of significance with the possibility at 71.1 percent (R2
adj 0.711). Especially, the self esteem in competence dimension was the best predictor among those factors analyzed.
Key words: volunteer-spirit, family function, social support, self esteem and virtue