Effect of Village Health Volunteer’s Capacity Building Program to Promote Health Literacy of Infectious Disease in the Border Areas of Mueang District, Nakhon Panom Province

Abstract

This quasi-experimental research study aimed to investigate knowledge, attitudes, health literacy, and health promotion behaviors regarding communicable diseases in border areas, and to compare the mean scores of knowledges, attitudes, health literacy, and health behaviors related to communicable disease prevention in border areas among village health volunteers before and after intervention activities. The study sample comprised 80 village health volunteers working in primary care units of Nakhon Phanom Hospital, Mueang District, Nakhon Phanom Province, selected through purposive sampling based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, considering the qualifications and characteristics of the sample group to align with the research objectives. The intervention was implemented using a health literacy promotion program for communicable diseases in border areas, applying Nutbeam's health literacy theory. Data was collected using a five-part questionnaire that underwent content validity testing by three experts. The researcher selected questions with IOC values greater than 0.5 and determined reliability by testing with a pilot group of 30 participants with similar characteristics to the study population. Reliability was analyzed using item analysis with KR-20 and Cronbach's Alpha coefficient, yielding an overall reliability of 0.922. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics including percentage, mean, standard deviation, and inferential statistics using Paired Sample t-test to compare the mean scores before and after program participation for various variables including knowledge, attitude, health literacy, and preventive behavior practices against communicable diseases. The results show that the majority of participants were female (87.5%), aged 61-70 years (33.75%), had primary education (53.75%), had been working as village health volunteers in primary care units at Nakhon Phanom Hospital for 1-5 years (22.5%), and had previously received training on communicable disease prevention (95.0%). Following the intervention, village health volunteers demonstrated increased desirable health behavior scores, including knowledge about self-care and communicable disease prevention at a high level (83.8%), attitudes toward self-care and communicable disease prevention at a high level (98.7%), health literacy in communicable disease prevention at a high level (96.3%), and preventive behaviors for communicable diseases at a high level (100.0%). The study results showed that post-intervention scores were significantly higher than pre-intervention scores at the .05 level (p-value < 0.005).