Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Apr 2;23(1):88.
doi: 10.1186/s12904-024-01423-5.

Facilitators and barriers of implementing end-of-life care volunteering in a hospital in five European countries: the iLIVE study

Berivan Yildiz  1 , Agnes van der Heide  2 , Misa Bakan  3 , Grethe Skorpen Iversen  4 , Dagny Faksvåg Haugen  4   5 , Tamsin McGlinchey  6 , Ruthmarijke Smeding  6 , John Ellershaw  6 , Claudia Fischer  7 , Judit Simon  7 , Eva Vibora-Martin  8 , Inmaculada Ruiz-Torreras  8 , Anne Goossensen  9 ; iLIVE consortium
Collaborators, Affiliations

Facilitators and barriers of implementing end-of-life care volunteering in a hospital in five European countries: the iLIVE study

Berivan Yildiz et al. BMC Palliat Care. .

Abstract

Background: End-of-life (EoL) care volunteers in hospitals are a novel approach to support patients and their close ones. The iLIVE Volunteer Study supported hospital volunteer coordinators from five European countries to design and implement an EoL care volunteer service on general wards in their hospitals. This study aimed to identify and explore barriers and facilitators to the implementation of EoL care volunteer services in the five hospitals.

Methods: Volunteer coordinators (VCs) from the Netherlands (NL), Norway (NO), Slovenia (SI), Spain (ES) and United Kingdom (UK) participated in a focus group interview and subsequent in-depth one-to-one interviews. A theory-inspired framework based on the five domains of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) was used for data collection and analysis. Results from the focus group were depicted in radar charts per hospital.

Results: Barriers across all hospitals were the COVID-19 pandemic delaying the implementation process, and the lack of recognition of the added value of EoL care volunteers by hospital staff. Site-specific barriers were struggles with promoting the service in a highly structured setting with many stakeholders (NL), negative views among nurses on hospital volunteering (NL, NO), a lack of support from healthcare professionals and the management (SI, ES), and uncertainty about their role in implementation among VCs (ES). Site-specific facilitators were training of volunteers (NO, SI, NL), involving volunteers in promoting the service (NO), and education and awareness for healthcare professionals about the role and boundaries of volunteers (UK).

Conclusion: Establishing a comprehensive EoL care volunteer service for patients in non-specialist palliative care wards involves multiple considerations including training, creating awareness and ensuring management support. Implementation requires involvement of stakeholders in a way that enables medical EoL care and volunteering to co-exist. Further research is needed to explore how trust and equal partnerships between volunteers and professional staff can be built and sustained.

Trial registration: NCT04678310. Registered 21/12/2020.

Keywords: End of life care; Hospital volunteer; Implementation; Inpatient; Volunteering.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Overview of data collection methods and data analysis
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) domain scores depicted in radar charts per site
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Vanderstichelen S. Palliative care volunteering: Pressing challenges in research. London: SAGE Publications Sage UK; 2022. pp. 564–6. - PubMed
    1. Andersson B, Öhlén J. Being a hospice volunteer. Palliat Med. 2005;19(8):602–609. doi: 10.1191/0269216305pm1083oa. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wilson DM, Justice C, Thomas R, Sheps S, MacAdam M, Brown M. End-of-life care volunteers: a systematic review of the literature. Health Serv Manage Res. 2005;18(4):244–257. doi: 10.1258/095148405774518624. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Scott R. “We cannot do it without you”-the impact of volunteers in UK hospices. Eur J Palliat Care. 2015;22(2):80–83.
    1. Goossensen A. Hospice and palliative care volunteering in the Netherlands. Practices of being there. Palliat Med Pract. 2018;12(4):193–7. doi: 10.5603/PMPI.2018.0010. - DOI

Associated data