Exploring Volunteers' Experiences in Health TAPESTRY

Exploring Volunteers' Experiences in Health TAPESTRY, a Primary Care-Based Program

This study is meant to evaluate the Health TAPESTRY volunteer program. The objective of this study is to explore volunteer experiences in Health TAPESTRY in terms of implementation and to understand how participation in Health TAPESTRY as a volunteer is related to compassion, self-reported physical activity, quality of life, and attitudes toward older adults.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Volunteers

Detailed Description

Health TAPESTRY aims to help people stay healthier for longer in the places where they live. As a person-focused, proactive approach, Health TAPESTRY incorporates trained community volunteers into the primary care team in a way that is seamless and complementary to the essential work that clinicians are undertaking each day. In the program, volunteers conduct home visits with older adult clients, complete questionnaires, and connect their clients to primary care and community resources. This study offers the opportunity to fill a major gap in the literature by investigating the experiences of volunteers within Health TAPESTRY and the effect on them of participation as an intervention in its own right.

Specifically, the study seeks to understand volunteers' experiences in the program and evaluate any effects that volunteering with the program has on the volunteers including with the volunteers health and wellness (specifically physical activity and quality of life), empathy, and attitudes toward older adults. The investigators will also look at how the volunteers patterns of compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction might change throughout involvement in the program, and how that connects to volunteer demographic characteristics like age and gender, as well as other characteristics like empathy, how many home visits are conducted, and the initial motivation to volunteer with the program.

This program evaluation study will employ qualitative and quantitative data collection strategies including surveys, narratives written by volunteers, and volunteer focus groups.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Actual): 89

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Ontario
    • Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8S 4K1
      • David Braley Health Sciences Centre, McMaster University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Study participants are drawn from the Health TAPESTRY volunteer pool. All Health TAPESTRY volunteers will be invited into the evaluation, however only those volunteers who choose to take part in the evaluative component of the program will be included in the analysis. Although we aim to include as many Health TAPESTRY volunteers as possible, an achievable target is set at half of the volunteers (approximately 17) in each of the 6 sites being involved in the research component.

The Volunteer Coordinator (VC) in each site will also be invited to attend an interview. The day-to-day management of volunteers within each site is managed by a VC from the Canadian Red Cross. The VC is the first contact for volunteers, and also the primary conduit that connects volunteers with clients.

Description

Must be a Health TAPESTRY Volunteer or Volunteer Coordinator. There are no further inclusion or exclusion criteria.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Number of groups / cohorts

2

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
Health TAPESTRY volunteers; Volunteers in a primary care setting connecting with Health TAPESTRY clients
Health TAPESTRY Volunteer Coordinators; The coordinators of volunteers

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Volunteers' Experiences	Volunteers' and volunteer coordinators' perceptions about their experiences in Health TAPESTRY overall, and specifically in regards to their understanding of their role; the training that was offered and how it did or did not support them in carrying out their role effectively; the process of engagement in the program from onboarding through the volunteer coordination to conducting home visits with clients; and the perceived outcomes of volunteering, including the impact of volunteering on their own health and wellness. This will be collected through qualitative data: focus groups for volunteers and interviews for volunteer coordinators at the 12-month mark, and volunteer narratives which are written post-client-visits.	12 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue	The change in compassion over time during participation as a Health TAPESTRY volunteer will be measured via the Professional Quality of Life survey (ProQOL), which measures both compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction through 30-items on 5-point scales ranging from "never" to "very often". Collected every 3 months for a 12 month period.	Baseline, 3 month, 6 month, 9 month, 12 months
Physical Activity	Volunteers' physical activity will be measured via the International Physical Activity Survey (IPAQ). Respondents indicate how many days in the past seven days, and for how many minutes, they have engaged in vigorous and moderate intensity activity and walking activity. Scores for vigorous and moderate intensity activity, and walking activity are calculated by multiplying the days by the number of minutes on one day by the metabolic equivalent of task (MET) value for the activity. The MET values used for vigorous and moderate intensity activity and walking are 8.0, 4.0, and 3.3 respectively. Collected at baseline and 12 months.	Baseline, 12 months
Quality of Life	Volunteers' quality of life will be measured via the five-level EuroQol five-dimension (EQ-5D-5L). The EQ-5D-5L asks respondents to rate their current ability in five domains: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain, and anxiety/depression, on a five-level scale. In addition, respondents are asked to rate their current health state on a scale from 0 ('worst health you can imagine') to 100 ('best health you can imagine'). A score from the five domains is calculated using a macro program and ranges from 0 to 1. Collected at baseline and 12 months.	Baseline, 12 months
Attitudes Toward Older Adults	Volunteers' attitudes toward older adults will be measured via the UCLA Geriatric Attitudes Scale.This 14-item survey measures volunteers' attitudes of older adults on a 5-point scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". Collected at baseline and 12 months.	Baseline, 12 months
Empathy	Volunteer empathy will be measured via the Basic Empathy Scale (BES), a 20-item scale based on a two-factor model of empathy. It includes 9 items evaluating cognitive empathy and 11 items evaluating affective empathy. Participants are asked to respond to each item on a five-point scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". With permission from the author, language on the BES was slightly altered to fit a North American audience. Collected at baseline and 12 months.	Baseline, 12 months
Reasons for Volunteering	A subscale of Clary & Snyder's Volunteerism Questionnaire, the Reasons for Volunteering sub-scale has 20-items and asks participants to respond to each item on a 7-point scale ranging from "not at all important/accurate for you" to "extremely important/accurate for you". Collected at baseline.	Baseline
Outcomes of Volunteering	A subscale of Clary & Snyder's Volunteerism Questionnaire, the Volunteering Outcomes sub-scale has 18 items, and primarily asks participants to respond to each item on a 7-point scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". Collected at 12 months.	12 Months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: McMaster University
• Collaborators: Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care; Canadian Red Cross; David Braley
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Doug Oliver, MSc,MD,CCFP, McMaster University; Principal Investigator: Dee Mangin, MBChB,DPH,FRN, McMaster University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 13, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): September 24, 2020
• Study Completion (Actual): September 24, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 27, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 27, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): March 5, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): December 21, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 18, 2020
• Last Verified: September 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Primary Care
• Other Study ID Numbers: 4301

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No