Competence Enhancement Program of Expressive Arts in End-of-Life Care for Health and Social Care Professionals: A Mixed-Method Evaluation

Abstract

In the recent decades, expressive arts (EXA) has been used in end-of-life care (EOLC) for facilitating the quality of life of the patients and the caregivers. However, it may not be practical for every EOLC service to dispense EXA activities solely by extensively trained art therapy specialists. There is currently a lack of brief training for nonart therapists, which may have stifled the application of the techniques in clinical settings. The current study therefore described and evaluated the effectiveness of a 2-day EXA training workshop in enhancing practice, knowledge, and self-competence among health and social care professionals working in EOLC using a mixed-method approach. The quantitative findings show significant improvement in perceived competence of providing services per holistic and person-centered EOLC objectives, nonpharmaceutical management of symptoms, and evidence-based psychosocial care as well as self-competence in death work (SCDW) after the workshop. The qualitative findings corroborated the quantitative results by suggesting that the improvement in competence could be associated with enhanced communication, meaning reconstruction, and therapeutic relationship with the clients as well as the improvement in mood, socialization, and self-esteem among the clients through the learned EXA activities. Our findings support the efficacy of a brief training of EXA activities for nonart therapists in enhancing multifaceted intervention competence. Further research on brief training will be needed to promote the use of EXA activities in the EOLC context.

Empowering families facing end-stage nonmalignant chronic diseases with a holistic, transdisciplinary, community-based intervention: 3 months outcome of the Life Rainbow Program

“…With its transdisciplinary approach to providing humanistic care, the LRP team members (social workers, nurses, and trained volunteers) were not only trained together, but also blended their skills to deliver care that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. Shared activities included use of expressive arts, games, and physical exercises to improve the quality of life of the patients and the families (Wang et al, 2017b;Nan et al, 2018). The transdisciplinary approach was founded on the notion that if the LRP is to empower families to care for their loved ones, then the community care team members from different disciplines should be empowered to learn these skills too.…”

Effectiveness of Educational Programs on Palliative and End-of-life Care in Promoting Perceived Competence Among Health and Social Care Professionals

“…[21][22][23][24] Studies that have involved both health and social care professionals have focused on interprofessional collaboration or 1 or 2 competences rather than multi-dimensional competency in end-of-life and palliative care. 13,[25][26][27] One pilot study reporting on a 9-month interprofessional palliative care curriculum for both health and social care workers targeted specialist palliative care professionals exclusively and involved only a very small sample (n ¼ 24), thus rendering generalization to other tiers of care and rigorous inter-professional comparison difficult. 28 It is also unclear if the length of EoLC teaching and experience makes a difference to the effectiveness of short-term educational programs.…”

Play Elements as Mechanisms in Intergenerational Arts Activities to Support Community Engagement with End-of-Life Issues

“…Such arts activities are commonly facilitated by professional artists or art therapists [ 1 , 2 , 8 ]. Along with offering alternative modes of expression, arts activities have been found to support communities, patients, families, and caregivers in coping with change, meaning-making, and personal growth [ 2 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]. Furthermore, collective arts activities have been found to offer possibilities for creating relationships and supportive communities [ 8 , 9 ].…”