Hospice Palliative Care Volunteers’ Attitudes, Opinions, Experiences, and Perceived Needs for Training Around Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD)

Abstract

Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) has been legal in Canada for over 4 years, but little is known about hospice palliative care (HPC) volunteers’ attitudes toward MAiD. To address this issue, 48 volunteers from 2 HPC volunteer programs in Atlantic Canada completed an anonymous mail survey examining their attitudes, opinions, experiences, and perceived needs for training around MAiD. The volunteers’ responses were generally supportive of MAiD as an end-of-life option and approving of some of the proposed changes to the current MAiD legislation (e.g., 85% of the volunteers either strongly agreed or agreed that advance requests for MAiD should be permitted). In terms of volunteers’ experiences, 15% of the volunteers reported that a patient of theirs had tried to initiate a conversation with them about MAiD. Nearly all (96%) of the volunteers indicated that it was not appropriate for them to bring up the topic of MAiD with their patients or patients’ family members/caregivers. Seventy percent of the volunteers reported that if a patient of theirs chose to pursue MAiD that they would be comfortable with being present (if asked) when it was being administered. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of the volunteers were interested in learning more about MAiD. The implications of this study for volunteer policies, specifically, those policies relating to the role of volunteers when it comes to conversations about MAiD with patients and patients’ family members/caregivers (should they arise) are discussed, as is the need for training on the topic of MAiD.

Assessment of the participation of women volunteers in the palliative care system in Kazakhstan

“…For instance, management of such standard costs as traveling, medicine, and accommodation when not regarded by local governments are covered by volunteers (Hopkins et al, 2013). In addition, previous studies on volunteering in palliative care and assistance to medical institutions investigated the influence of volunteers supporting patients (Weeks et al, 2008;Claxton-Oldfield et al, 2010;Claxton-Oldfield & Beaudette, 2021). For example, Candy et al (2015) studied if families of cancer patients, those who needed palliative care, or patients themselves were satisfiezhud with the help of volunteers.…”