The Effects of Participatory Early Childhood Development Promotion at Romklao Community Health Center.

Abstract

     This quasi-experimental research was a one-group pretest-posttest design to study the effects of early childhood development promotion at Romklao Community Health Center, Mueang District, Sakon Nakhon Province. The sample consisted of 30 early childhood children aged 9, 18, 30, 42, and 60 months, along with their parents and 5 nurses at Romklao Community Health Center, who were purposively selected. Development promotion was conducted according to the DSPM manual under the framework of Ryan and Deci’s Self-Determination Theory. The research instruments included 1) child development assessment form and DSPM manual, 2) participatory child development promotion guidelines, 3) participatory behavior questionnaire, and 4) satisfaction questionnaire. Data were analyzed using ready-made programs, including percentage, mean, standard deviation, McNemar’s test, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, and Chi-square test.

     The results found that after joining the project, early childhood children had significantly higher overall and individual development scores than before joining the project (p < .05). Parents and nurses had significantly higher participation in development promotion activities (p < 0.05). In addition, parents were very satisfied. This participation resulted in the integration of roles between families and nurses in the process of promoting child development systematically.