Health literacy in the prevention of respiratory diseases among Sugar factories' worker Northeast, Thailand

Abstract

Recently, Thailand has transitioned from an agrarian to industrial society. Many workers have health problems from working. The top 3 of illness include respiratory system 32.5%, low back pain or muscle pain 20.7% and stress or insomnia or headache 18.9%. However, limited studies were carried out to explore health literacy in the prevention of respiratory diseases among Sugar factories' worker. A cross-sectional research aimed to study health literacy in the prevention of respiratory diseases and the using respiratory protective equipment (RPE) among sugar factories' workers in Northeast Thailand. The 588 samples were selected by the multi-stage random sampling out of the 4 factories and completed the constructive questionnaire. The result indicated that workers in the sugar factory are male 71.94% with average age of 38 years old. Most of them graduated primary school 30.78%. Moreover, the marital status is 70.58% and average income was 10,146 Baht per month. 92.35% of workers had good level of health literacy in the prevention about respiratory disease (Mean 9.45, S.D. = 1.10, 95% CI= 0.28-1.97, Min: Max = 2:10). To conclude, although, the most workers had good health literacy in the prevention of respiratory disease; the majority of Thai people's deaths were caused by Non-communicable disease (NCD). Therefore, the quality of people's health behavior and self-care ability of the people need to be improved.