The Cost of Caring : The professional quality of life of Dutch volunteers in palliative care and associated factors

The present study aimed to explore the wellbeing, or professional quality of life of Dutch volunteers in palliative care. Dutch volunteers in palliative care have a unique and important role in palliative care institutions, yet the status of their professional wellbeing remains widely unknown. Therefore, the prevalence of compassion satisfaction, burnout and secondary traumatic stress were investigated. Furthermore, the present study focused on the extent to which personal, work related, and organization related factors were associated with volunteers’ professional quality of life. A cross-sectional online survey was distributed among the network of the Dutch organization of volunteers in palliative care for data collection (n=107). It was found that emotion focused and task focused coping, interactions problems with or between the patient and their loved ones, and role ambiguity could be linked to volunteers’ professional quality of life. The current study showed that volunteers greatly enjoyed the positive aspects of their work. However, it was also shown that volunteers do feel the costs of caring when experiencing the trauma of loss and grief.