When to Say “Yes” and When to Say “No”

Abstract

A total of 79 hospice palliative care volunteers from 2 community-based hospice programs responded to a 27-item Boundary Issues Questionnaire that was specifically developed for this study. Volunteers were asked to indicate whether or not they considered each item (eg, "Lend personal belongings to a patient or family," "Agree to be a patient's power of attorney," "Attend/go into a patient's medical appointment") to be something they should not do and to indicate whether or not they have ever done it. On the basis of the volunteers' responses, the authors distinguished between "definite boundary issues" (things volunteers should never do, for example, "Accept money from a patient or family"), "potential boundary issues" (things volunteers should stop and think twice about doing, for example, "Accept a gift from a patient or family"), and "questionable boundary issues" (things volunteers should be aware of doing, for example, "Give your home phone number to a patient or family"). The implications of these findings for training volunteers are discussed and the need for clear and unambiguous organizational policies and procedures to preserve boundaries is stressed. Without clear policies, etc, community-based hospice programs may be putting themselves at legal risk.

Caring to Learn and Learning to Care

“…In community hospice programs, volunteers play a vital but circumscribed role focused primarily on providing companionship to patients and respite to family caregivers (Berry & Planalp, 2009, Claxton-Oldfield, Gibbon, & Schmidt-Chamberlain, 2011). In the prison peer-care volunteer model described here, in contrast, volunteers provide the majority of hospice patient care and psychosocial support on a one-to-one basis, including symptom assessment and non-pharmacological management, assistance with activities of daily living such as bathing, toileting, assistance with eating or feeding, skin care, and mobility, companionship, and spiritual support if this is what the patient requests.…”

Am I Selfishly Selfless? The Roles of Altruism and Socio Demographic Factors on Volunteering Commitment Among Premier Public University Students

“…Previous studies have also reported that volunteering generally increases with educational attainment whereby those with higher levels of formal education are more likely to volunteer than others and may contribute more hours in volunteering (Hall et al, 2009;Claxton-Oldfield et al, 2011;Wilson & Newman, 2011). Their findings advanced the idea who were employed were more likely to volunteer as compared to those who were unemployed.…”

“…This study further supports the studies done by Zweigenhattm et al, (1996) and Lindenmeir (2008), which found that women are more likely to engage in voluntary work and are more dependable compared to their male counterparts. On the other hand, it also found that those who were married and having partners, compared to single individuals, were likely to feel rushed and have lesser time to spare for other work such as volunteerism (Warburton and Crosier, 2001;Claxton-Oldfield et al, 2011).…”

Frivillighed i palliation: Kvalitative studier af muligheder og udfordringer knyttet til frivilliges arbejde og samarbejde i den afsluttende del af livet hos borgere i eget hjem og på plejehjem

“…De frivillige beskrives som betydningsfulde mellemled mellem professionelle og den hjaelp-traengende og dennes pårørende, saerligt når frivilligheden udføres hos borgere i eget hjem (52,55). Studier viser, at frivilliges centrale rolle også betyder udfordringer knyttet til afgraensning mellem frivilliges og professionelles opgaver (52,56,57). Internationale studier har da også vaeret optaget af frivilliges oplaering til det palliative felt ( [58][59][60][61], hvor krav og omfang kan variere betydeligt på tvaers af lande (62).…”

“…Der var en eller flere ansatte aktivitetskoordinatorer, hvis hovedopgave var den daglige kontakt til ca. [50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60]…”