2021 Volume 12 Issue 2 Pages 1-6
Child health problems in agricultural areas of Thailand are still a problem and must be addressed urgently. This study used a research and development (R&D) design consisting of two phases. Phase 1 aimed to understand parental behavior regarding pesticide exposure among children in agricultural areas. Data were collected by key informants with purposive sampling that used focus group discussion (8 informants/group) from 5 groups of parents of 1-3 years old children living in agricultural areas in Sakon Nakhon Province, totaling 40 people. Data were collected by multiple parent focus group in Sakon Nakhon Province. Data collected was then analyzed using content analysis. Phase 2 aimed to develop and study the quality of a parental behavior modification program for pesticide exposure prevention among children in agricultural areas. The results in phase 1 were used as input factors to develop the foreside program by the Intervention Mapping ( IM) . The developed program was then tests and reviewed by nine experts. Data were analyzed with mean and standard deviation. We found that parent’s behavior in preventing pesticide exposure in their children was influenced by a least three factors, namely: attitudes toward pesticide exposure in their children, social norms and perceived behavioral control about pesticides exposure in their children. This meets the basic structure of Theory of Planned Behavior. The second phase involved developing a parental behavior modification program for pesticide exposure prevention in children in agricultural areas for a Sub-District Health Promotion Hospital. The components of the developed program were:1) background and significance; 2) objective; 3) organization; 4) role of involved people; 5) guidelines for organizing four learning activities for the parent behavior modification program; 6) monitoring and evaluation and 7) program management. The results of the program’s quality assessment found that the overall quality of the program is in a very good level. When considered each aspect, it was found that all aspects; accuracy standard, utility standard, appropriateness standard, feasibility standard and generalizability standard were in very good quality as well. The findings of this study suggest that the developed program should be implemented with parents who had desirable pesticide exposure prevention behaviors.
