Motivation of emergency medical services volunteers: a study of organized Good Samaritans

Abstract

Background: Early professional care in emergencies is beneficial in general and its utility has been proven in many studies, particularly in regard to out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest. A person in distress can expect help from two sources: bystanders, including family members, community members, and complete strangers; and professionals, including emergency medical services, first responders, firefighters, and police officers. Emergency Medical Services try to achieve faster first response times through various approaches. Recent technological and social developments have enabled a new form of Emergency Medical Services volunteering, called Organized Good Samaritans, which represents a new layer between occasional volunteers and time-donation volunteers. Organized Good Samaritans are people with a medical background, particularly off-duty medical professionals who are willing and able to provide first aid in emergencies in their vicinity. Methods: A qualitative formalization of technology-enabled Organized Good Samaritans is presented. One thousand eight hundred Israeli National Emergency Medical Services volunteers were surveyed using Clary and Snyder's Volunteer Functions Inventory instrument. Demographics, professional backgrounds, and volunteering functions of Time-Donation Volunteers and Organized Good Samaritans are compared. Results: Significant differences between Organized Good Samaritans and Time Donation Volunteers were found. Demographically, Organized Good Samaritans are older and the percentage of males is higher. Professionally, the percentage of physicians and nurses among Organized Good Samaritans is higher. Motivation measures find that the motivation of Organized Good Samaritans is higher and the order of importance of the volunteering functions differs.

Layperson reversal of opioid overdose supported by smartphone alert: A prospective observational cohort study

“…This study has examined an unmediated Emergency Response Community model in which layperson dispatch is concurrent with, yet independent from, EMS dispatch. Future research should also consider an integrated model in which EMS mediates layperson dispatch and directly supports the responses of community laypersons [38] .…”

Occupation-Related Volunteering: A Qualitative Systematic Literature Review, Conceptualization, and Directions for Future Research

“…Accordingly, the opportunity exists to study other work-life stages, for example, occupation-related volunteering as a post-retirement “encore” career (e.g., Simpson et al, 2012). Other directions include uncertainty not only when transitioning (e.g., Wilson-Forsberg & Sethi, 2015) but during uncertain or precarious times of work (e.g., Pavlova & Silbereisen, 2014) and new work forms and volunteering; for example, having multiple work careers (e.g., Fechter, 2017), online volunteering (e.g., Bitzer & Geishecker, 2010), technology’s impact on volunteering (e.g., Khalemsky et al, 2020) and blended volunteering-work formats (e.g., Zhou et al, 2019).…”

“…Occupation-related volunteering research can expand across diverse volunteering and work organizational contexts and the opportunities and choices available (Arnold et al, 2011; Granfield, 2007; Khalemsky et al, 2020; Nesbit & Gazley, 2012) and relatedly, gender and minority group differences (Frank et al, 2003; Granfield, 2007). Other directions for consideration included intercultural and ethical decision-making competencies development (Brown-Liburd & Porco, 2011; Christensen & Woodland, 2018; Tang & Schwantes, 2021).…”

Knowledge Mapping of Volunteer Motivation: A Bibliometric Analysis and Cross-Cultural Comparative Study

“…The Volunteer Function Inventory (VFI) is devised under the guidance of functionalist theory (Clary et al, 1998). Most studies closely related to the green cluster of keywords choose research variables and organize a research framework based on VFI (Clary and Snyder, 1999;Allison et al, 2002;Finkelstein et al, 2005;Houle et al, 2005;Liao-Troth, 2005;Mowen and Sujan, 2005;Kim et al, 2010;Willems et al, 2012;Bang et al, 2013;Oostlander et al, 2014;Alexander et al, 2015;Khalemsky et al, 2020). Moreover, papers related to the green cluster of keywords combine functionalist theory and role identity theory to analyze the service motivation of volunteers.…”