A Palliative Care Program for Volunteers in a Community Setting: A Mixed-Methods Pilot Study

Abstract

Background: The objective of community-based palliative care is to improve the quality of life of patients and their families and to share the responsibility of caregiving. However, the evidence of the efficacy of volunteer services in community-based palliative care is insufficient. Purpose: This pilot study sought to uncover the feasibility and efficacy of a volunteer program in palliative care. Methods: The study used a sequential mixed-methods design. A total of 19 volunteers participated in the training program, and 6 trained volunteers provided services for a period of 10 weeks to 5 families. Quantitative data were collected on death anxiety, coping with death, and meaning in life for volunteers before and after the training and after completing their services. Qualitative data were collected about volunteering experiences. Results: Significant increases in coping with death and meaning in life after training and in meaning in life after providing services were observed among volunteers. Three categories (“Volunteer’s growing influence at home,” “Discovering meaning-in-life through volunteering,” and “Death as the final journey in life”) emerged from the qualitative findings. The caregivers’ satisfaction score was high. Conclusions: A palliative care program was found to be useful for volunteers in finding meaning in life, motivating continued volunteering. Moreover, caregivers were satisfied with the palliative care service of volunteers.

‘The more you give, the better it is for you. You know the reward is greater than the effort’: the Compassionate Communities Connectors’ experience

“…Increasingly palliative care volunteers are involved in psychosocial care such as bereavement support, emotional support, spiritual care, and arts programmes such as biographical programmes. 4,5 When community members volunteer in end-of-life services, they report feeling greater life satisfaction 6,7 and have increased death competency and decreased death anxiety following training programmes. 8 A recent systematic review of the emotional experiences of volunteers identified personal challenges (both intrinsic and extrinsic) and personal gains such as the development of relationships.…”

Palliative Care in Colorectal Cancer

“…Better than dividing patients into strict treatment protocols and different models of care, this new concept supports the provision of patient care by a single discipline comprised of a team of health-care professionals with expertise in symptom management, psychosocial care, spiritual support, caregiver care, communication, complex decision-making skills, and end-of-life care [16].…”

“…Volunteer work fills a large part of these gaps and can be the way out to overcome difficulties in access and funding [17], but adequate training of volunteers is essential to obtain the appropriate level of performance [16].…”

“…No specific pharmacological intervention can be recommended as the standard of care, but progesterone analogs and short-term corticosteroids. It may be choose wisely because is associated with thromboembolic risk and gain of more fat gain than muscle mass [16]. Among other nonspecific symptoms of colorectal carcinoma, but often associated with advanced neoplasia, 35-96% of patients experience pain, 32-90% experience fatigue, and 10-70% experience breathlessness [25].…”

“…Patients typically experience more than one symptom at any one time [29]. Grond et al [16] found that 94% of those referred to a cancer pain clinic experienced additional symptoms, with 15% reporting at least five.…”