Caracterização do voluntariado em cuidados paliativos em Portugal

Abstract

Introduction: In Europe the recommendation for voluntary work in palliative care goes beyond the importance of including volunteer on teams. They defined the numbers of volunteers per capita, important requirements such as specific training in the area, the existence of coordinators and spaces for reflection / monitoring. In Portugal it´s known the existence of voluntary work in palliative care, nevertheless in face of the given recommendation we should consider this reality. Objective: To analyze volunteering in palliative care of Portugal, were defined three objectives - to know the voluntary coverage, to know the profile of volunteers and describe how volunteering is organized in terms of selection criteria, specific training in palliative care, coordination and monitoring. Methodology: A descriptive study with a quantitative approach, with data collection through two models of questionnaires – one for the volunteers, and another for responsible of each palliative care teams. Results: 51.9 % palliative care teams in Portugal have volunteers; these, 81.8 % are women with average age 51, 54.6 % are married, 36.4 % have secondary education and 40.9 % are retired. Concerning the organization of volunteering must note that: 57.1 % of the teams use as selection criteria specific training and personal characteristics of personality 77.8 % of the volunteers have specific training; 100 % of the teams have a volunteer coordinator; 66.7 % of the volunteers are having had follow-up meetings.Conclusions: The number of volunteers per capita are still below the EAPC recommendations. The profile of the study volunteers is in generally identical to the national level of the IPSS and oncology volunteers, except for occupation and other European realities in the field of palliative care, concerning to gender and age. Practices in the organization of volunteering appear to be varied, however, the existence of a coordinator is constant in all teams

Date of Award	2014
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Maria Teresa Pereira Serrano (Supervisor) & Manuel Luís Capelas (Co-Supervisor)