Helminthiasis among Elderly with Long Term Care Setting, Sisaket Province, Thailand

Abstract

Beyond the COVID-19 pandemics, from the Era of New normal along with advancement in technology is a concurrent advancement in public health. Prevention and control programs dealing with tropical and parasitic diseases have been developed and implemented. However, even with these advances, tropical and parasitic diseases remain a serious concern for the public health system in Thailand. The first cross-sectional analytical study identified risk factors associated with helminthiasis among the elderly in Srisaket Province. The investigators already visited and collected from 293 subjects during Year 2020. The data were analyzed descriptive statistics include number, percentage, mean, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum values. Inferential statistics investigated the association of factors affecting the prevention behavior of helminthiasis infection among the elderly by Pearson's correlation coefficient statistics. Analysis equation was also used to predict the relationship between two groups of variables by using Stepwise Multinomial logistic regression statistics. The study revealed a higher prevalence of helminthiasis in the population age group of over 60 to 90 years old compared to other age groups. It also indicated that males (37.9%) were more significant than females (62.1%). The results of fecal eggs or larvae counts of elderly in the overview showed that they were hookworm infection 6.80%, Taenia infection 4.40% and Opisthorchis’s 2.40% respectively. The results revealed 4 factors associated with preventive behavior of helminthiasis knowledge, perceived benefit, social support, and self-efficacy respectively. The stepwise multiple regression analysis used to predict the preventive behavior of helminthiasis among elderly in Sisaket Province could jointly explain 16.20% of the variance (R² = 0.162, R²_adj = 0.150, SE_est = 7.39094, F = 13.383, p = 0.03) of preventive behavior of helminthiasis among elderly with significant at level 0.05. Therefore, establishing the long-term care preventive model of helminthiasis should focus on these factors.