Differences and similarities between 130 volunteers who remain for more than eight years in the same non-profit organization and 110 volunteers who quit during the first year were analyzed in this paper. Both groups were chosen from a sample of 851 volunteers that were working as volunteers when we assessed the independent variables (Time 1). After a 12-month follow-up (Time 2), 209 (25%) of them had dropped out and 642 (75%) continued in the same organization. Using the previous time, we formed two groups made up of those who dropped out and had been in the organization less than a year and those who continued and had been in the organization more than 8 years. Results show that differences and similarities between both groups are coherent with the three-stage model of volunteer's duration (Chacón, Vecina, & Dávila, 2007). This model includes the functional approach of volunteers' motivations (Clary & Snyder, 1991), and the role identity approach (Callero, 1985), and indicates that people will remain as volunteers insofar as this satisfies the motivations that are relevant for them at the first stage, they develop organizational commitment at the second stage, and they develop role identity as volunteers at the third stage. More specifically, results show that it is possible to predict 85% of the cases correctly using seven variables. Volunteers who remain after eight years feel a higher level of emotional exhaustion, a higher level of organizational commitment, and a strong role identity as volunteers. They are also highly satisfied with the friendships in the organization and have a stronger intention to remain at the long term (2 years).

Volunteerism is a well consolidated social phenomenon in our society. However, its rapid growth in the last few years has complicated the integration of theoretical knowledge and its application in organizational settings. Taking into account that nowadays, one of the chief problems of volunteer organizations is sustained volunteer service, the object of this work is to verify, within the context of the psychosocial model of sustained volunteerism (Vecina, 2001), the type of relation between the experience of positive emotions in volunteers and their intention of remaining in the organization. This work was carried out on a sample of volunteers who had been in service for less than one year prior to this study. Keywords: volunteerism, positive emotions, sustained serviceEl voluntariado es un fenómeno social ya consolidado en nuestra sociedad. Sin embargo, el rápido crecimiento que en los últimos años ha experimentado hace difícil la integración de conocimientos teóricos y su aplicación en los contextos organizacionales. Considerando que uno de los principales problemas que tienen las organizaciones de voluntariado actualmente es la permanencia de su voluntariado, el objetivo de este trabajo es constatar, dentro del contexto aportado por el modelo psicosocial de la permanencia del voluntariado (Vecina, 2001), el tipo de relación existente entre la experiencia de emociones positivas en el voluntariado y la intención de permanencia en la organización en una muestra de voluntarios que lleva menos de un año de permanencia previa.

A problem for many organizations is the low continuity of volunteers. Diverse theoretical models have been developed to explain sustained volunteerism, but most of these models have focused on the study of welfare volunteerism and not have verified whether their results could be generalized to other types of volunteerism. In this study, we propose a basic model to explain sustained volunteerism in any type of volunteerism. The aim of this study is to examine this basic model empirically in a sample of socio-assistential volunteers and in a sample of environmental volunteers. For this purpose, 290 volunteers completed a questionnaire and subsequently, two telephone follow-ups were carried out to determine whether the volunteers remained in the NGO one year later. The results show that the basic model offers an acceptable explanation of sustained volunteerism in the two types of volunteer samples studied, but it accounted for a low percentage of variance of the duration of service in both samples. Various relevant implications for the practical management of volunteerism in organizations are derived from theses findings. Keywords: volunteerism, retention, satisfaction, organizational commitment, intention to continueUno de los problemas a los que se enfrentan muchas organizaciones es la escasa permanencia de los voluntarios. Para predecir la permanencia se han desarrollado diversos modelos teóricos, pero la gran mayoría se ha centrado en el estudio del voluntariado de carácter sociosanitario y no se ha comprobado si los resultados podrían generalizarse a otros tipos de voluntariado. En este trabajo se propone un modelo teórico básico que pueda explicar la permanencia de cualquier tipo de voluntariado, independientemente de las peculiaridades de los mismos. El objetivo de este trabajo es contrastar empíricamente en una muestra de voluntarios socioasistenciales y en una muestra de voluntarios medioambientales dicho modelo básico. Para ello, 290 voluntarios contestaron un cuestionario y participaron en dos seguimientos telefónicos durante un año para evaluar su permanencia en la organización. Los resultados muestran que el modelo básico propuesto obtiene un ajuste aceptable tanto en voluntarios socioasistenciales como en voluntarios medioambientales, aunque logra explicar reducidos porcentajes de varianza de la permanencia en ambos casos. De estos hallazgos se derivan distintas implicaciones para la gestión práctica del voluntariado en las organizaciones. Palabras

healthcare assistants (HCA) to perform LSMs. The aim of this review was to assess the impact of this change on the quality of LSM as measured by success rate and failed scans. Methods A transient elastography service delivered by trained specialist liver nurses was set up in our hospital in May 2010. In July 2013, 3 HCAs were trained to carry out LSM using a Fibroscan®. The HCAs were initially trained by the manufacturers of the Fibroscan ® unit (Echosens Europe) and then underwent a period of formally observed training with formative and summative work place based assessments. After competency was ascertained, the HCAs were independently allowed to carry out LSMs. A retrospective review of all LSM reports from January 2013 to December 2013 was carried out and success rate of the tests were recorded. Any repeat requests due to failure were also recorded. Results A total of 876 LSM were performed during the review period. 542 LSMs were performed by trained nurses and 334 by trained HCAs. There was no statistically significant difference in the mean success rate between nurses (96% SD 11.9%) and HCAs (96.4% SD 11.7%) (p = 0.699, 2 sample T Test) nor the proportion of LSMs with 100% success rates between the two groups (78.4 vs. 82.3% p = 0.151, Fisher's exact test). Furthermore, there were no statistical differences in any central measure of the observed interquartile ranges of the reported LSM between the 2 groups (p = 0.255). No LSM was repeated when performed by HCA for reasons of failure. Conclusion LSM using a Fibroscan ® can be accurately performed by appropriately trained HCAs. The introduction of this change in practice has allowed a reduction in waiting time for LSM to within 2 weeks without affecting the quality of the service and allowed a more efficient use of resources. A high quality transient elastography service can be delivered by HCAs.

The objective of the study was to determine the causal effects of school failure (SF) among secondary school students, belonging to five public schools within the region of Girardota, Colombia, through the validation of a psychosocial model with structural equations. A total of 319 students, 25% more males, enrolled in classes between 6th and 11th year, with an average age of 14 years. Furthermore, 265 parents and 200 teachers were also included in the sample. Participants answered the questions raised in 9 instruments. Of the total number of students, 63.8% were surveyed. The instruments were subjected to a pilot test and to the judgment of experts. In order to reduce the amount of data, exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses were used. Other techniques of multivariate analysis such as decision trees and linear regressions were also used in order to previously evaluate the relationships between the independent variables (IV) and the dependent variable (DV). Afterwards, the Full SEM was calculated, yielding a model consisting of 34 variables (10 latent and 24 observable), with the following indexes of goodness of fit: CMIN/DF = 1.146, p = .058, IFI = 0.974, TLI = .970, CFI = .974, RMSEA = .027 and PCLOSE = 0.998. Theoretically, the model confirms the predictive value of the selected variables, with respect to school failure. The results are applicable to both the design of educational policies and the direct intervention in the classroom. In both contexts, strategies can be developed that reduce factors that negatively affect school performance, actively linking students, teachers and parents.