Development and Implementation of a Healthcare Volunteer Retention Program

Practice Problem: Healthcare volunteer responders are an asset during disasters, and their retention is necessary to meet rising demands. This project aimed to develop and implement an evidence-based practice change using a healthcare volunteer retention program and evaluate its influence on retention. PICOT: The PICOT question that guided this evidence-based practice project was: In healthcare volunteers, how does the participation in a formal healthcare volunteer retention program influence healthcare volunteer retention rate, intent to stay, and volunteer satisfaction 12 weeks after Healthcare Volunteer Retention Program introduction? Evidence: The evidence from the literature supported mentoring, education and training, and social support to retain healthcare volunteers. Intervention: The Iowa Model Collaborative guided this project using the Plan, Do, Study, and Act framework to implement the Healthcare Volunteer Retention Program. Healthcare volunteer retention, education and training, and surveys before and after implementation were monitored to evaluate the retention program’s influence. Outcomes: The implementation resulted in a retention rate of 98%, the intent to stay improved by 6%, and 89% of the survey participants were satisfied with the retention program. Additionally, a paired-samples t-test conducted to compare the survey’s results before and after implementation resulted in a t-value of 3.508 at alpha = .05, which supported the effectiveness of the retention program. Conclusion: Local, regional, national, and worldwide opportunities exist to build capacity for healthcare volunteers. Disaster response readiness by healthcare volunteers requires mentoring, education and training, and social support to improve this workforce’s retention.

Associations of Self-Efficacy, Optimism, and Empathy with Psychological Health in Healthcare Volunteers

Optimism and self-efficacy have been associated with psychological health. Empathy has also been found to have a unique role in community health volunteering and promote positive functioning. This study investigated whether self-efficacy and optimism were associated with psychological health in terms of psychological and subjective well-being in healthcare volunteers. It also investigated whether empathy added to the explanation of psychological health, over and above that accounted for by self-efficacy and optimism. A convenience sample of 160 Italian clown doctors volunteering in various hospitals completed self-report measures of self-efficacy, optimism, empathy, psychological well-being, and subjective well-being. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that self-efficacy and optimism were associated with both outcomes and that aspects of empathy, such as others’ perspective taking and personal distress for others’ difficulties, added to the explanation of psychological health with opposite effects. The present study adds to previous research on the role of self-efficacy, optimism, and empathy for community health volunteers’ psychological health. It also offers suggestions regarding the training for this type of volunteer.

Empathy Adds Incrementally to the Association of Self-Efficacy and Optimism with Psychological Health in Healthcare Volunteers

Optimism and self-efficacy have been associated with psychological health. Empathy has also been found to promote positive functioning and to have a unique role in community health volunteering. This study investigated whether self-efficacy and optimism were associated with psychological and subjective well-being in a group of healthcare volunteers and whether empathy added incrementally to these associations. A sample of 160 Italian clown doctors volunteering in various hospitals completed self-report measures of self-efficacy, optimism, empathy, psychological well-being, and subjective well-being. Results indicated that self-efficacy and optimism were associated with both outcomes and that aspects of empathy, such as others’ perspective-taking and personal distress for others’ difficulties, incrementally added to these associations, although with opposite effects. The present study adds to previous research on the role of self-efficacy, optimism, and empathy for community health volunteers’ psychological health and offers suggestions regarding the training of this type of volunteer.

Motivations for Volunteerism, Satisfaction, and Emotional Exhaustion: The Moderating Effect of Volunteers’ Age

This investigation aims to explore the moderating role of volunteers’ age in the relation between motivations for volunteering and, respectively, satisfaction with volunteerism and emotional exhaustion. A longitudinal study was conducted with a sample of 241 Spanish healthcare volunteers. Results show that volunteers’ age moderates the relations between social motivations and satisfaction, and social motivations and volunteers’ emotional exhaustion, and also between growth motivations and satisfaction, and volunteers’ emotional exhaustion. The relationships between security motivations and satisfaction and emotional exhaustion are not moderated by age. Our findings underline that, for younger volunteers, satisfaction decreases when social motives are high, rather than low, and, in the opposite, emotional exhaustion increases when growth motives are high, rather than low. For older volunteers, instead, the only significant effect concern satisfaction, which is higher when social motives are high, rather than low.