Volunteers in palliative care units: description of the current situation in Spain

Objectives: the objectives of our study were to determine the percentage of volunteers in the palliative care units of autonomous communities, to approach their profile, and to specify whether involved units have specific training programs for them. Material and method: a descriptive study carried out in 265 palliative care units in various autonomous communities. It collected information from each unit through a telephone questionnaire to volunteers' coordinators or other people related to them. Results: we found out that in Ceuta, Extremadura, Melilla, La Rioja and Navarra 100% of palliative care units have volunteers whereas in Asturias, Cantabria and Murcia 0% have them. Within units, 18% of home care and 34.43% of hospital treatment teams have volunteers. Regarding the profile of volunteers data suggest that those who share their commitment to the terminally ill with other patients reach 100% in Extremadura and meaningful rates in the remaining communities; 100% of the volunteers in Balearic Islands, Ceuta, La Rioja and Melilla assist the terminally ill. Similarly in 9 communities 100% of volunteering is external to the palliative care team, as compared to 2 communities in which 100% is a part of it. Our results also show that 31% of units have specific training programs for volunteers and 47.7% either lack these or are general in nature. In 21.3% of units the type of training programs has not been determined. Conclusions: most communities have volunteers in their palliative care units although participation is very low, especially as far as home help is concerned. In these units volunteers prevail who are part of entities external to the team, and who share their commitment to the terminally ill with other patients. Moreover, in these units training programmes targeted at volunteers are really scarce/poor/insufficient.