An evaluative instrument based on patient's perception of health for the monitoring of primary medical care in rural areas in Thailand.

The evaluative instrument for the monitoring of primary medical care services in rural areas in Thailand, consisting of health risk, sickness-related dysfunction, health-specific coping index and health care of the patient's family, was developed and tested by 2,394 patients in the 4 regions. The patients had high health risk (70.8 +/- 14.0), high health-specific coping index (71.3 +/- 16.4), high health care of patient's family (76.1 +/- 10.0), and very low sickness-related dysfunction (13.4 +/- 15.6). The average time used for assessing the patients' perception of health was 37.9 minutes by sanitarians, 32.9 midwives, 29.9 by nurses and 24.8 by medical doctors. The reliability of the instrument was tested by paired interviewers; sanitarians and midwives, medical doctors and nurses, and was highly reliable for health risk and health-specific coping index. Language was the major obstacle in interviewing in the South.