Abstract

Introduction: Volunteers play an important role in supporting patients in hospitals, especially older adult patients who may have increased care needs. This systematic scoping review aimed to synthesise evidence related to qualitative evaluations of hospital-based therapeutically oriented volunteer programs for older patients from the perspective of clinicians (nurses, doctors, and allied health professionals), and stakeholders (patients, families, and volunteers). Methods: Nine databases were searched from January 2002 to November 2022. Of the 549 articles identified, 15 were included in the final review. Results: The evidence demonstrated that clinicians, patients, families, and volunteers could all see the benefits of volunteer programs for hospitalised older adults. Conclusion: The benefits of volunteer support for older adults in hospital to patients, nurses, family members and volunteers outweighs the challenges. As volunteers provide support to older adult patients alongside nurses the incorporation of volunteers into care teams needs to be considered.

RAS ID

77174

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

1-1-2025

Volume

61

School

Centre for Research in Aged Care / School of Nursing and Midwifery

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Publisher

Elsevier

Comments

Saunders, R., Ocampo, F. A., Graham, R., Christiansen, A., Gay, M., & Seaman, K. (2025). Hospital volunteer programs for older people: A systematic scoping review. Geriatric Nursing, 61, 185-191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gerinurse.2024.11.005

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1016/j.gerinurse.2024.11.005