EFFECTIVENESS OF COMMUNITY-BASED DISABILITY SERVICE DEVELOPED FOR STROKE PATIENTS IN SICHON DISTRICT, THAILAND

Home care disability service was organized for continuity of care in stroke patients.The purpose of study was to determine the efficacy of knowledge management process of home care program for community-living stroke patients.This participatory action research was combined with knowledge management procedure and was conducted in 16 primary health care providers between 1 October 2014 to 30 September 2015. The target patients were 64 disabled stroke patients and their care givers. Data collection included the assessment of knowledge, attitude, and practice of patients’ home visit and synthesized the lessons from primary care providers. Knowledge management was applied by sharing and learning process. The topic of home care service for stroke patients was the main issue in knowledge sharing process. At the end of each session, the summaries of learned lessons were recorded and analyzed for good practice. We organized 3 times of sharing experiences. A comparison of the results of practice before and after the use of this process was the outcome measured. The results revealed the knowledge, attitude and practice of primary care providers increased to 89.37%, 90.62% and 88.75% respectively.Overall satisfaction rate was 87.43 %. The clinical outcomes of disabled stroke patients improved by increased score of ADL 37.50 %. The complication of pressure sore and re-admission rate were decreased. This study demonstrated the benefits of home care services with community participation. Knowledge sharing could apply in routine work for comparing good practice within primary care network.