The Potential of Elderly Caregivers in Pa Sao Sub-district, Muang District, Uttaradit Province

Abstract

This survey research aimed to analyzed potential of caregivers at Pa Sao Sub-district, Maung District, Uttaradit Province. Participation action research was applied in this study. Participants were 162 caregivers who gave daily routines for elderly; and snowball sampling technique was used to recruit the samples. Data were collected by using questionnaire, and were analyzed by frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. It was found that most of participants (69.8%) were female with the mean age of 45.5±12.4 years old. The main relationship with the elderly was their child (61.7%). The number of the elderly under care was 1 (69.8%); and the age range was 61-70 among 49.1% of the caregivers. Many of the elderly had hypertension (53.4%) and diabetes (29.9%). The period of care was over 2 years for 36.4% of caregivers. Knowledge and rehabilitation skills among the caregivers were at fair level (49.4%), and the stress was normal level (67.3% of the caregivers). The self-efficiency was at fair level (mean=3.64). In this study, moderate level of problems and constraints were observe in 3 areas: elderly care potential, sommunity and social support, and the living environment (at the mean level of 3.20, 3.01 and 3.08 respectively). Most of them would like to develop and empower on capacity building and community collaboration for social support (at the mean level of 3.46 and 3.43, respectively), as they were quite uncertain about thair capacity of elderly care. Moreover, the community government officers were unaware of the importance of caregivers and elderly care. Therefore, the findings of this study should be used in developing an appropriate system for elderly care in order to promote health and the quality of life of the elderly.