Comparison of attitudes and beliefs about self-care and personal responsibility for health held by consumers and pharmacists in Thailand

Abstract

Abstract The 16-item Krantz Health Opinion Survey (KHOS) and the 18-item Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) were used to measure Thai consumers' and pharmacists' attitudes and beliefs about self-care and personal responsibility for health. A face-to-face interview was conducted with 193 consumers at Silpakorn university pharmacy, Thailand, and with 34 pharmacists who worked occasionally at the pharmacy. All subjects were asked to indicate their responses to each of the 34 statements on a continuous measure ranging from strong disagreement to strong agreement. The KHOS results showed that Thai pharmacists had more favourable attitudes than Thai consumers towards receiving health care information and were more actively involved in their health care. The MHLC results showed that Thai consumers believed more than Thai pharmacists that their health was under the control of “powerful others”. Out of five demographic variables (sex, age, marital status, education and income), education was found to be the best predictor of Thai consumers' attitudes and beliefs. However, none of these variables could be used to predict Thai pharmacists' attitudes and beliefs.