การศึกษาพฤติกรรมการเลี้ยงดูเด็กในแหล่งก่อสร้าง จังหวัดสมุทรปราการ

Abstract

Child Care Practice in Construction Camp in Samutprakarn ProvinceThe study aims at testing the rapid survey method for assessing the status of child care practice in construction camp. The study was conducted at a fairly large construction site in the suburb of Samutprakarm city on November 1996. The data were collected by 17 health officers of the Samutprakarn Provincial Health office with a combination of qualitative obsevation, indepth case study and strctured interview questionnaire in one day. The result demonstrate that the approach was able to define clearly the pattern of last 24 hours dietary intake in qualitative and quantiative aspect of daily life. The data and information allow for matrix analysis by crosstabulation between behaviour and demographics which yield highly useful information for public health intervention development and planning. The result also revealed the importance of careful field work planning based on comprehensive basic information and data on target population in determining the extent of missing sample and data reliability. The sample included 52 female and 52 male parents, age between 20-39 year old and 66 children, age 1-14 years from 52 Thai and 4 Myanmar families. The male parents were mostly skilled worker and a small proportion of subcontractor. The female parent were more than 90 percent home maker. Most children were 1-3 year old, female to male ratio is 1:1.6. The result revealed numerous intimidation factors from physical environment and type of work which regulated the daily diet intake. The temporary living quarter especially for the workers below subcontractor level did not have good hygeinic standard because of poor sanitation. The dietary supply, either raw material or cooked food was limited to whatever the few small stalls in the camp carried. Most stalls did not have refrigerating facility for meat/fish storage. However, low cost snacks, candies and crackers were available in abundance. Most children below 3 year old did not have 3 regular meal. Only 3 from 8 infant below 1 year old have 3 regular meals of mother's milk and supplementary food of rice and treated meat protein. Although all the 1-2 year old had breakfast, 40 percent either had no lunch or dinner. For the 3 year and above dietary intake appeared adequate. The 4 hours dietary intake clearly delineated the critical role of parent in child care which cannot be fulfil because of the marginal subsistence condition of construction camp population. In case of illness, fever was relieved by parental care of cold compress and self medicated analgesics. Only 24.1percent took the child to medical clinic. One third of parents reported leaving diarrhoea untreated and 12.5 percent had treated their child with ORS. It is apparent that solution to good child care in construction camp can not be resolved from public health intervention only. Improvement to economic condition, camp management, appropriate health living from comprehensive knowledge of the target population to cite few major components need to be consider as concert measures.