Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine the role of village leaders in the development of the Rural Primary Health Care Program. Its main focus was on the differences in their personal attributes and behavior patterns, such as modernity, communication behavior, and achievement motivation, which were conceived of as three major factors making for high or low level of rural health development. An assessment of the credibility of local leaders was also made to see whether it could account for the different degrees of development under study. Three villages in Amphoe Lamplaimas, Changwad Buriram, was included in the sample. They were purposively selected to represent 3 levels of health development: high, moderate, and low, respectively. These three villages are about the same size; are located about the same distance from the District Headquarters; and have been made experimental units of the said Program at the same time (in 1979). Two sets of indicators were used to ascertain the levels of development, namely, the Basic Need Determinants and the Village Minimum Standard of Living. In addition, another village was selected to function like a control group in an experimental research design. This fourth unit of study was much further from the seat of the District than the three original ones, but was ranked high on the scale of health development as measured by the said two sets of indicators. Altogether, the four villages constituted the sampling frame and their residents were treated as the population or universe from which the final sample was drawn. As a result, there were 77 village leaders and 253 randomly selected villagers in the total sample. Since the present investigator was able to draw both on previous research findings and on existing social psychological theories to formulate the research problem, he hypothesized that a strong relationship would be found between certain leadership traits and the degrees of health development. To be more specific, it was hypothesized that: 1. Compared to those leaders in less developed villages, leaders in the highly developed ones would be more superior regarding such personal characteristics as modernity, communication behavior, and achievement motivation. 2. Demographic characteristics of village leaders could not be regarded as possible explanations of differences among high and low levels of health development. 3. There would be a strong relationship amongst the three aforementioned personal attributes of village leaders. That is, leaders who are high or low on modernity would be high or low on communication behavior and achievement motivation as well. An interview schedule or questionnaire was used to collect the relevant data. In addition to percentage differences, certain more sophisticated techniques of data analysis were used to test the hypothesized differences and relationships. The research findings show that, insofar as modernity, communication behavior, and primary health care are concerned, there were statistically significant differences between leaders of the highly developed villages and those of the least developed ones. But with respect to the trait of achievement motivation, the differences were not thoroughly consistent, particularly between the control village and those lower on the scale of health development. Moreover, it was found that demographic characteristics of village leaders did not have significant impact on the degrees of health development under study. It is also worth noting that public acceptance of local leaders (the problem of credibility) played no part in the effectiveness of the program. Therefore, it will not go far wrong to conclude that the greater the differences in leadership traits and behavior, the greater would be the difference in the levels of health development among the villages under study.