The Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Factors Affecting Professional Competency in Community Health Practitioners of North-Eastern Thailand

Abstract

This cross-sectional analytical study was aimed to study the competency level community health practitioners and analyzed to confirm factors affecting the competency in community health practitioners in North-Eastern Thailand. The stratified random sampling was used to select 450 people from 20 provinces in North-Eastern Thailand. The result of research found that the level of competence in public health practitioners overall was at the average = 3.48 ± 0.68, divided into 44.00 % professional level, 42.44% practitioner level, 8.89% learner level. The results of the confirmation factor analysis showed that experience was described by age and working period with Factor loading = 0.990, 0.959 Competency was described by Managerial competency, Common competency, Specific competency, and Core competency with Factor loading = 0.939, 0.938, 0.899, 0.815, respectively, and Competency, Experience and Characteristic component explained to each other by factor loading = 0.993, 0.482, 0.380 respectively. The development of the competency of public health professionals must be performed for all competencies because all competencies were related and affected each other in a complementary direction.