Village Health Volunteers’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Perceived Self-Efficacy in Providing Palliative Care for End-of-Life Patients

Main Article Content

Saengwan Tungsaengsakul
Suparinya Sumpuntharat
Chunjarabhon Sinsir

Abstract

    The objectives of this descriptive research were to examine the knowledge, attitudes, and perceived self-efficacy levels of village health volunteers providing palliative care for end-of-life patients and to compare the knowledge, attitudes, and perceived self-efficacy in providing palliative care for end-of-life patients among village health volunteers with different educational levels and work experiences. The samples were 245 village health volunteers who worked in KlongLuang Municipality, Prathumthani and were selected by using proportionate stratified sampling procedures. The data were collected using a questionnaire consisted of demographic form, knowledge, attitudes, and perceived self-efficacy in providing palliative care for end-of-life patients. The reliability of the knowledge questionnaire was tested using KR-20 and yield .89 The reliabilities of attitudes, and perceived self-efficacy in providing palliative care for end-of-life patients were examined using Cronbach’s alpha coefficients and yield .73 and .94, respectively. Descriptive statistics and the Kruskal-Wallis test were used for data analysis.
      The study found that the village health volunteers had a moderate level of knowledge (M=13.59, SD=2.39), a moderate level of attitudes (M=2.81, SD=0.23), and a high level of perceived self-efficacy in providing palliative care for end-of-life patients (M=3.17, SD=0.50). In terms of education level, no statistically-significant difference was found in the village health volunteers’ knowledge and perceived selfefficacy in providing palliative care for end-of-life patients. In terms of attitudes, statistically-significant difference was found in providing palliative care for end-of-life patients. There was no significantly different among village health volunteers with different experiences on palliative care for end-of-life patients regarding to knowledge, attitudes and perceived self-efficacy.
        Nurses and other healthcare providers should promote village health volunteers to enhance their knowledge and their attitudes on palliative care, to maintain their perceived self-efficacy on palliative care
and to provide end of life patients in communities more effectively.      

Article Details

How to Cite
Tungsaengsakul, S., Sumpuntharat, S., & Sinsir, C. (2018). Village Health Volunteers’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Perceived Self-Efficacy in Providing Palliative Care for End-of-Life Patients. Journal of Research in Nursing-Midwifery and Health Sciences, 38(1), 77–89. Retrieved from https://he02.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/nur-psu/article/view/117396
Section
Original Articles

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