• J Pain Symptom Manage · Dec 2023

    Review

    A Meta-Ethnographic Review of Paid Staff and Volunteers Working together in Palliative Care.

    • Katherine Oliver, Michelle Brown, Catherine Walshe, and Yakubu Salifu.
    • International Observatory on End of Life Care (K.O., C.W., Y.S.), Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK; Division of Nursing and Midwifery (K.O.), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK. Electronic address: k.oliver3@lancaster.ac.uk.
    • J Pain Symptom Manage. 2023 Dec 1; 66 (6): 656670.e11656-670.e11.

    ContextVolunteers in palliative care settings are an essential part of care provision for patients and those important to them. Effective collaboration between volunteers and paid staff has been regarded as an important element of successful working, however, at times failures in coordination, information sharing and tensions within teams have been highlighted.ObjectivesTo explore the views expressed by volunteers and paid staff about their experiences of working together in palliative care settings.MethodsA systematic exploration of qualitative research using a meta-ethnographic approach. PsycINFO, CINAHL, Medline Complete, and AMED databases were searched from inception to December 2021 for the concepts "volunteers" and "palliative care." Repeated in-depth reading and appraisal of papers identified metaphors and concepts, providing new interpretations.ResultsIncluded papers (n = 14) enabled the construction of five storylines: 1) "we are the cake, and they are the cream": understanding the volunteer role-separate, but part of a whole. 2) "…we don't know what's wrong with people but sometimes we need to know": access to information and importance of trust. 3) "everybody looks out for each other": access to paid staff and their support. 4) "...we don't meddle in the medical": boundaries. 5) "it's the small things that the staff does for me that makes me feel good about my work": sense of value and significance.ConclusionsFor effective working relationships between paid staff and volunteers, proactive engagement, recognition of each other's role and contribution, mutual sharing of information, and intentional interaction between both groups is needed.Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…

What will the 'Medical Journal of You' look like?

Start your free 21 day trial now.

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.