The experiences of professional hospice workers attending creative arts workshops in Gauteng

Abstract

Object: This article explores the experiences of professional hospice workers using a creative process for debriefing them in order to facilitate the expression and communication of complex thoughts and feelings. The creative arts workshops were developed with the understanding in mind that caring for terminally ill patients can be challenging and stressful and professional hospice workers are subsequently at risk of developing compassion fatigue. The workshops focussed on skills transfers as well as self-healing by experiencing and teaching a diverse range of creative arts like music, drama, art, touch therapy, storytelling and movement. Design: Case study design. Setting: Gauteng, South Africa. Methods: Data collection included individual interviews with 19 trainees at nine different hospices, focus group interviews, observations during the workshops as well as a researcher journal. Themes were generated through thematic analysis to describe the experiences of the caregivers. Results: We found that the expressive arts facilitated communication and self-care and improved the wellbeing of the professional hospice workers. Conclusion: These findings add to understanding of the healing effects of the creative arts and especially the benefits in the hospice setting.

Literature review of art therapy-based interventions for work-related stress

“…The current author's experience of delivering training on art therapy-based organisational interventions indicated a keen interest amongst art therapists to develop this practice, which although still relatively small has already attracted studies using empirical research methods such as those by Visnola et al (2010) and Salzano et al (2013). Art therapy-based interventions can bring muchneeded creativity to address work-stress and increase resilience and well-being.…”

“…Important information was omitted, such as the number and voluntary status of participants (Klein, 1973), the duration and frequency of the intervention (Klein, 1973;Riley, 1997) and an actual description of the intervention (Van Westrhenen & Fritza, 2012). When used, pretest or post-test measures were often limited to short participant surveys (Murrant et al, 2000;Nainis, 2005) or not specified (Huet, 2012).…”

“…When used, pretest or post-test measures were often limited to short participant surveys (Murrant et al, 2000;Nainis, 2005) or not specified (Huet, 2012). Limitations of interventions using empirical measures included: a research protocol where stress was not operationalised (Julliard et al, 2002); the absence of any intervention in the control group (Visnola et al, 2010), which affected the validity of comparisons with the experimental group; and a lack of randomisation of participant allocation (Salzano et al, 2013) that may have affected results positively. However, since the research method most commonly used within art therapy was a case study-based approach using therapist-reported outcomes (Gilroy, 2006), the studies by Visnola et al (2010) and Salzano et al (2013), together with Huet's (2011Huet's ( , 2012 use of audio recordings and thematic analysis, denoted a growing interest in using more rigorous qualitative and quantitative research methodology within art therapy.…”

“…The art therapy programme devised by Visnola et al (2010) and used for this intervention was a structured series of nine themed group sessions of two hours each. A time structure was used: half an hour's initial discussion followed by an hour's art-making, with a final half an hour's discussion of art works and feelings.…”

“…Participants all engaged in art-making and many expressed relief at discovering a high level of commonality when sharing the meaning of their art works (Huet, 2012;Klein, 1973;Riley, 1997;Visnola et al, 2010). Artviewing was also added to the process by Huet (2011Huet ( , 2012, thereby increasing the role of images.…”