Abstract:
This thesis aims at studying the diffusion of Primary Health Care Information through publications and its effects on the level of family health knowledge. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of information reception and to analyse the socio-economic status factors that affect the level of family health : knowledge, Also, the thesis purports to examine the characteristics of publications that would interest eligi¬ble women. The samples for this study consisted of 200 mothers, 15 to 45 years old, still living with their husbands, and their houses were loeated in the munioipal district, Changwat Korn Keen. Multi-Stage Sampling was used to select respondents, and every mother with the above qualifications in the selected household was interviewed using questionaires and tests. The research design was Pretest-Posttest Control Group Design and the only experimental group, 100 eligible women, was given the treatment, namely, the distribution of publications on primary health care. The statistical analyses were com¬pleted by both the manual and machine methods. The results of the study revealed that. 1. The ones who received the publications had more knowledge achievement than the ones who did not receive. 2. The ones who had higher educational level improved their knowledge more than those with lower edu¬cational level. 3. The ones who had higher economic status improved their knowledge more than those with Tower economic status. 4. The ones who had fewer children. improved their knowledge more than those with more children. 5. The ones who were in lower age group improved their knowledge more than those in higher age group. 6. The ones who read the publication more frequen¬tly improved their knowledge more than those who did less frequently. All of the above results confirm the hypotheses. With regards to the characteristics of the message, it was found that most of the samples had no problems with technical terms, euphemism and abstractness that were used in the publications. As to the organization of the message, i.e., primacy - recency, ordered - disordered, introduction - conclusion, most of the respondents found it acceptable. however, it was found that 72 percent of the subjects wanted two sided message presentation, 95 percent wanted examples to substantiate the points and about 68 percent did not want fear appeals to be used. Regarding the form of the publications, all of the eligible women found the size attractive, and 93 percent approved the front cover and 12 percent wanted more pages to be increased. Asked about the advantages gathered from reading the publications, 87 percent admitted that know - ledge and comprehension about health practices were increased, 24 percent disclosed that they got some new ideas in health practices and child nourishment, and 64 percent would practice as they were informed. It was found that there was a relationship between the health practice of mothers when they were ill and the number of living children they had. Mothers who had fewer living children would seek modern primary health care when they were ill than those who had more living children. Also, mothers with fewer living children were likely to pay more attention in taking their children to receive the D.P.T., B.C.G., small pox and polio immunization. The conclusion of this study was that diffusion of primary health care information through publications was useful especially for the ones who had higher socio - economic status, and those who read the publications more frequently.