Abstract:
This descriptive study aimed to examine the relationship between health perception, health literacy and caring behavior of the caregivers of the children with acyanotic congenital heart disease. The study sample included 75 caregivers of the children with acyanotic congenital heart disease aged 0 to 5 years. These children have not undergone the cardiac surgery attending at Pediatric Cardiology Clinics and Pediatric Wards in three tertiary hospitals in Bangkok. The subjects were recruited by a Convenience Sampling technique. Data were collected using the questionnaires: a demographic data form, health perception questionnaire, health literacy questionnaire, and caring behavior questionaire of the caregivers for the children with acyanotic congenital heart disease. Data were analyzed by the descriptive statistics and Spearman's rank-order correlation. The results of the study showed that the caring behavior of the caregivers of the children with acyanotic congenital heart disease was at a high level (X̅ = 82.00, SD = 8.79). There was a statistically significant positive correlation between health perception, health literacy of caregivers and the caring behavior of the caregivers of the children with acyanotic congenital heart disease (r = .432, p <.001), (r = .446, p <.001) respectively. The findings of this study would be used as the basic information for nurses and healthcare providers to promote the caring behavior of the caregivers for the children with acyanotic congenital heart disease, with awareness of health perception and health literacy which would assist these children to be healthy and ready for a cardiac surgery.