Formation of Ruk Tai Community through Participatory Process, MahaSarakham Province, 2017 - 2018

Abstract

This participatory action research was aimed to compare participation behavior and laboratory tests before and after performing activities to delay the progress of renal impairment and to identify a pattern to establish a Ruk Tai community (community cooperation for preserving renal functions). Five villages were selected by using simple random sampling. Subsequently, a purposive sampling technique was employed to select 500 participants, including community leaders, individuals and patients with chronic disease following the inclusion criteria. The activities to delay renal impairment consisted of four main subsequent stages: planning, action, observation and reflection. The planning stage applied A-I-C for participatory planning, including appreciation (A), influence (I), and control (C). The implementation of the plan took 12 months. A questionnaire, laboratory tests and focus groups were applied for data collection. The data were then analysed by using percentage, mean, standard deviation (SD) and paired t-test. The level of statistical significance was set at 0.05. The study findings revealed that the participation behavior of the participants significantly increased after undergoing the activities at 0.05 level. According to the laboratory results, the patients with chronic disease had slower progress of chronic kidney disease; 13 people (81.25%) turned disease stage 4 in to 3, and 38 people (56.71%) shifted from stage 3 to 2. Moreover, a pattern of the formation of the Ruk Tai community was obtained with four steps consisting of: (1) forming a committee with duties, (2) creating a participatory plan following the community context, (3) taking action, and (4) evaluating by the committee. Implementation of the participatory strategy for establishing Ruk Tai community was found to be beneficial to building problem awareness, seeking a solution, and voluntarily engaging of the community. These benefits could result in concrete work that should be explicit and continuous. It is recommended that this model should be applied in other areas with similar contexts.