Scope and inclination of voluntary service for urban community-living older adults provided by volunteers with nursing background: A qualitative study

BACKGROUND

With the growing challenge of an aging population, addressing the needs of elderly individuals who face living difficulties and lack family support becomes increasingly difficult. Volunteer services are crucial in this context, yet their effectiveness is hindered by unclear service scopes and uncertain volunteer inclinations.

AIM

To explore the role and specific preference of volunteers with nursing backgrounds in support of older adults living in the urban community. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: A descriptive qualitative study was conducted between September and October 2022. Twenty-three participants (hospital nurses [10], community nurses [4], nursing teachers [4] and nursing students [5]) were selected. Data analysis followed conventional content analysis.

RESULTS

Nine major themes were identified based on interview data. Four themes described the service scope of nursing volunteers: (1) environment domain, (2) physiological domain, (3) psychosocial domain and (4) health-related behaviours domain. Another five themes highlighted the service inclination of these volunteers: (1) service frequency, (2) service duration per person/time, (3) service coverage, (4) service place and (5) service object.

CONCLUSION

This study clarifies the service focus and scope of necessary support for volunteers, exploring the potential service capabilities of scarce volunteers to the greatest extent. Meanwhile, the results of this study also provide a foundation for stakeholders to fully exploit the synergy. The important findings of this study will help the government and relevant authorities better understand the service attributes of nursing volunteers, allowing them to develop detailed training plans and provide nursing volunteers with targeted support and assistance to meet the health expectations of urban community-living older adults in need.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

Developing research questions, participation and conduct and provision and interpretation of evidence.

Student engagement in voluntary service in response to COVID-19 in Guangzhou, China: Implications for disease control and public health education from a cross-sectional study

Public health students have been seen as a potential force to meet the demand for health workers during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, few studies have provided empirical data. This study was conducted to summarize the experiences of public health students who engaged in voluntary service in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in Guangzhou, China. A cross-sectional study was conducted among postgraduate and undergraduate students at the School of Public Health, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, in August 2021. A self-designed online questionnaire was used to collect data on the experience of voluntary service during the early stage of the outbreak (in February 2020) and during the normalization stage of the prevention and control of COVID-19 (in June 2021) in China. Among the 96 students, 40 (41.7%) participated in voluntary service in February 2020, and 56 (58.3%) participated in voluntary service in June 2021. Most of the students participated in the voluntary service due to the motivations to help others (55.2%), to apply theoretical knowledge to practice (74.0%), to improve their fieldwork skills (72.9%), and to gain the experience for future careers (80.2%). Most volunteers were driven by professional responsibility (81.3%). More than half (53.1%) of the students felt anxious during their voluntary service. A lower proportion of students felt anxious in June 2021 than in February 2020 (44.6% vs 65.0%, P = .049), while a higher proportion of students found voluntary service harder than expected in June 2021 than in February 2020 (33.9% vs 7.5%, P = .002). Most students improved their knowledge and skills about COVID-19 after the training, but some knowledge and skills still needed improvement after their voluntary service. Public health students could help support the health system during the COVID-19 pandemic by providing adequate training and protection. More efforts should be made to provide psychological support for student volunteers and to optimize the curriculum to bridge the gap in public health education between theoretical knowledge and practical skills in responding to public health emergencies.

Policies of voluntary services involved in public health emergencies in China: Evolution, evaluation, and expectation

Background

Public health emergencies have an immense effect on social stability, economic development, and human life. Volunteers played an indispensable role in health monitoring, assistance with daily life, and social network repairing. However, few policies analysis concentrated on the voluntary services involved in public health emergencies.

Objectives

This study aims to analyze and summarize the advantages and flaws of the policy documents relating to voluntary services involved in public health emergencies, and put forward the enlightenment on policymaking and optimization.

Methods

A three-dimensional analysis framework of "Policy instruments-Participants of voluntary services-Stages of voluntary services" was designed. Policy documents at the national level were retrieved from the official websites of the State Council of the People's Republic of China and its departments as well as the PKULAW Database. NVivo software was applied to analyze the contents of the included policy documents. Gephi software was adopted to conduct a visualized atlas analysis of the cooperative network among policymaking departments.

Results

A total of 77 policy documents were included, and most were published in 2020 (n = 40). The Ministry of Civil Affairs (n = 19) and the National Health Commission (n = 18) issued more documents than the other departments. They cooperated more extensively with other departments. In policy documents, supply-side policy instruments were utilized the most (65.4%), followed by demand-side (23.9%). Voluntary organizations in the form of ambiguous sense were most mentioned as service participants (n = 73). In the stages of service delivery, service content mainly involved the prevention and control of public health emergencies (27, 18.9%) and psychological counseling (26, 18.2%).

Conclusion

Time distribution of policy documents featured "incubation period-outbreak and continuous evolution period-elimination recovery period." Joint issuing became the dominant form. The internal structure of policy instruments was unbalanced with different priorities, and the overall structure is expected to be optimized to promote voluntary organization management, reinforce external resources, and close the gap between policymaking and policy implementation. Volunteers' competence and voluntary organizations' system needs to be improved, and the contents of voluntary services should be enriched for the preparedness for future public health emergency.

Assessing the Role of Trust in Information Sources, Adoption of Preventive Practices, Volunteering and Degree of Training on Biological Risk Prevention, on Perceived Risk of Infection and Usage of Personal Protective Equipment Among Italian Medical Students During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

Background: During the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Bologna Medical School surveyed medical students to learn more about their preparation to confront challenges posed by the pandemic and whether it affects perceptions of viral infection risk. This information could help design risk-reduction interventions with training to mitigate possible viral exposure. Method: A cross-sectional online survey examining students' characteristics, volunteer status, adoption of evidence-based preventive measures, trust in information sources used, infectious disease training, and knowledge of PPE usage in relation to perceived risk of infection from SARS-CoV-2 in daily living, academic, and healthcare activities. A multivariate path model estimated the simultaneous influences of all exogenous factors on perceived risk. A Poisson regression model assessed the same multivariate effects on knowledge of PPE usage. Results: The analysis sample included 537 respondents. Perceived risk of infection was highest in hospital activities. On average, students were able to use only four out of seven types of PPE albeit they adopted most of the evidence-based preventive measures. Adoption of preventive measures was positively associated with perceived risk of COVID infection. Conversely, training on PPE usage and volunteer work were associated with lower perceived risk in healthcare setting and higher PPE knowledge. Conclusion: Implementing early safety-based educational programs remedy students' lack of knowledge in infectious disease prevention and mitigate their risk of infection. Voluntary work should be encouraged with potential benefit for both their continued medical training and strengthening the healthcare system's response to public health emergencies.

"Hang in There!": Mental Health in a Sample of the Italian Civil Protection Volunteers during the COVID-19 Health Emergency

Few studies have been conducted on civil volunteers and their emotional conditions concerning the current COVID-19 pandemic. The present study aimed to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 emergency on the mental health (general well-being, depression level, and post-traumatic distress), coping strategies, and training needs in an Italian sample of 331 Civil Protection volunteers of the L'Aquila province, during the first nationwide "lockdown" (8 March-3 June 2020). The rate of respondents to the online survey was limited (11.5%), presumably because displaying distress would be considered a sign of "weakness", making volunteers unable to do their jobs. More than 90% of the volunteers showed good mental health conditions and a wide utilization of positive coping strategies, with the less experienced displaying better emotional conditions compared to colleagues with 10 or more years of experience. The type of emergency, the relatively few cases of contagion and mortality in the territory compared to the rest of Italy, and the sense of helping the community, together with the awareness of their group identity, could have contributed to the reported well-being. These results may help to identify the needs of volunteers related to this new "urban" emergency to improve both their technical and emotional skills.

Medical Students' Voluntary Service During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland

From the very first moment coronavirus struck, medical students volunteered to support healthcare professionals' fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. To learn more about future healthcare professionals' volunteering during such an outbreak, we conducted a survey among 417 students of Poznan University of Medical Sciences. Our findings suggest that although numerous studies demonstrate that traditional, value-based volunteering is decreasing, and especially higher education students are more oriented toward their own career, in the times of the current health crisis, young peoples' involvement in volunteering has been mainly driven by altruism and the ethical imperative to serve their community, their fellow healthcare professionals and their patients. Thus, while the prime role of the volunteering was to relieve the healthcare system, it also reinforced such important medical values as altruism, public service and professional solidarity. Moreover, it proved that whilst risk is inherent to medicine, the students' volunteering is truly a moral enterprise.