Empathy and social support for the terminally ill: Implications for recruiting and retaining hospice and hospital volunteers

Hospice care is a growing alternative for terminally ill patients, and hospice volunteers provide needed services to patients and their families. Few communication studies have investigated the contributions that hospice volunteers make to the overall experience and philosophy of the hospice system, although such studies have the potential to guide volunteer recruitment, selection, and training. Hospice (n = 48) and hospital volunteers (n = 69) completed surveys measuring trait empathy, and after reading a hypothetical situation involving a terminally ill patient, reported how likely and easy it would he for them to provide a) instrumental support and b) emotional support. The results suggest that hospice volunteers may he qualitatively different from their counterparts who volunteered for more conventional health care organizations, both in their individual characteristics, as well as in their propensity for the type of social support they offer. The findings afford the opportunity to derive some potential guidelines for recruiting and retaining volunteers in hospice and hospital volunteer programs.