Well-Being Measurement Scale For Farmers In Northeast Thailand

Abstract

The purpose of this research study was to develop a well-being scale for the farmers of the northeastern region of Thailand. This descriptive research employed a workshop for ten qualified representatives of the personnel—selected by purposive sampling—from both the government and private sectors working with farmers in Chaiyaphum Province. The workshop was designed to find solutions for meanings, factors, indicators, and a scale of well-being of the farmers in the Northeast based on data from previous research on the meanings and well-being indicators of northeastern farmers. Our Scale was drafted and then examined in terms of its content validity, construction validity, reliability and the norm of the scale. Twenty-one experts evaluated the content validity. Data were collected from 1,600 farmers living in Chaiyaphum Province by multi-stage random sampling. Factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient were performed. The Northeastern Farmers’ Wellbeing Scale (NFW Scale) was successfully completed and included 79 items in 12 domains with 49 indicators; including: illness (2), physical and health services (6), mental state (3), mental power (3), social (4), spiritual and beliefs (7), knowledge (4), family (5), economics (4), financial (4), housing (4) and environmental management (3). The reliability was 0.93. The overall scores of the NFW Scale were assigned to 3 groups using a normative model: ‘better well-being’ ≥ 299; average between 260 and 298 ; and, ‘below average’ ≤ 259.