Abstract:
This research was a cross-sectional survey research to study equity of physical therapy services for 137 patients with stroke in Nakhonnayok Province, Thailand using questionnaires and interviews from June to December 2011. The analyses consisted of frequency distributions, percentage and chi-square. The results show that physical therapy services for stroke patients at Nakhonnayok province showed horizontal non-equivalence in all three-dimensions of physical therapy (number of treatment, time for treatment and frequency of treatment). There were statistically significant relationship between the level of illness and 1) number of physical therapy types (p=0.001) and time and frequency of physical therapy (p=0.045). The factors that had statistically significant relationship with physical therapy services were age (p=0.016), education (p=0.046), residences of patients (p=0.023), expense of patients (p=0.002), health care scheme (p <0.001) and Primary the main caregiver of patients (p=0.023). To achieve equity for physical therapy among stroke patients, policy makers are recommended to use findings from this study and consider threedimensions of physical therapy for activity plan or development of standard practice guideline on physical therapy for patients with stroke.