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The purpose of this paper is to study and compare knowledge and skills in basic care for the dependent elderly of health volunteers before and after the increase in ability program participation.

Quasi experimental research includes one group pretest-posttest design. The research was conducted from January to March 2018. The samples were 30 health volunteers in Nakorn Pathom Province selected by purposive sampling. They were all female, aged 20–50 years, with minimal education level of early secondary school and were current or former health volunteers. The increase ability program consisted of lecture and skill practice by demonstration and individual replay demonstration. The program duration was 30 h with 19 h of skill practice and 2 days of site visit to the dependent elderly’ homes. The tool for collecting data was a questionnaire for the evaluation of knowledge and skills in basic care for the dependent elderly. The data were analyzed by means, standard deviation and paired t-test.

After the increase in ability program participation, the health volunteers had very good level of knowledge in basic care for the dependent elderly with statistical significance (p<0.01) and had most correct skills in basic care for the dependent elderly with a score of 9 from 11 items.

Knowledge and skills in basic care for the dependent elderly of the health volunteers increased to a very good level after program participation. Thailand should provide periodic and continuous training program to increase health volunteers’ knowledge and skills in basic elderly care to provide care for the elderly with most benefits.