Introduction
Volunteering in hospice settings involves offering invaluable support to patients who are facing terminal illnesses and their families during a challenging phase of life. One crucial aspect of this role is advocacy, which plays a pivotal role in ensuring that patients’ voices are heard, their rights are protected, and their preferences are respected (Matthews & Lawson, 2018). This essay delves into the significance of advocacy in volunteering with hospice patients, highlighting its role in enhancing patient-centered care and promoting dignity in the face of illness. Drawing upon relevant journal articles from 2018 and onwards, this paper emphasizes the evolving landscape of hospice care and the growing recognition of the importance of advocacy.
The Importance of Advocacy with Hospice Patients
Ensuring Patient-Centered Care: Hospice care is centered around the patient’s comfort, dignity, and quality of life in the face of terminal illness. Effective advocacy ensures that patients actively participate in decisions related to their care plans (Johnson & Stenman, 2021). Volunteers trained in advocacy skills can facilitate these conversations, ensuring that patients’ preferences for pain management, treatment options, and end-of-life choices are respected.
Preserving Patient Dignity
Dignity is a fundamental human right that should be upheld throughout an individual’s life, regardless of their health status. For hospice patients, maintaining dignity becomes even more crucial (Anderson, Toombs, & Dockter, 2019). Advocates can play a vital role in preserving dignity by ensuring that patients are treated with respect, their personal choices are honored, and their cultural or religious beliefs are taken into account.
Addressing Emotional and Psychological Needs
The emotional and psychological well-being of hospice patients is as important as their physical comfort. Advocates can offer emotional support by actively listening to patients’ concerns, providing companionship, and offering a compassionate presence (McEnhill, Caring for Life, & Caring for Life, 2018). Volunteers trained in emotional support significantly contribute to patients’ overall sense of well-being. Through advocacy, volunteers can alert healthcare teams to the psychological needs of patients, ensuring they receive appropriate support.
Empowering Informed Consent
Informed consent is a cornerstone of ethical medical practice. Advocacy ensures that patients have access to comprehensive information about their condition and treatment options, enabling them to make informed decisions (Lee & Kirchhoff, 2020). Patients who feel well-informed experience reduced anxiety and a greater sense of control. Volunteers can assist by providing information in an understandable manner and addressing patients’ questions or concerns.
Promoting Family Engagement
Advocacy in hospice volunteering extends beyond the individual patient to encompass the vital role of promoting family engagement. Families often serve as primary caregivers and emotional anchors for hospice patients, and their involvement significantly influences the patient’s quality of life and end-of-life experience (Selman et al., 2019). Recognizing the importance of family engagement, advocates play a crucial role in facilitating effective communication and collaboration between healthcare providers, patients, and families.
Family engagement involves fostering open dialogue, understanding, and support between healthcare teams and the patient’s family members. This collaboration ensures that families are informed about the patient’s condition, treatment options, and care plans. It also empowers families to participate in decision-making processes while respecting the patient’s wishes and values. Advocates, through their training, can serve as intermediaries, ensuring that families have access to accurate information and providing a platform for their concerns to be addressed (Matthews & Lawson, 2018).
In the context of family engagement, advocates can assist in organizing family meetings where healthcare professionals discuss the patient’s condition, prognosis, and potential treatment options. These discussions can be emotionally overwhelming for families, and advocates can provide emotional support, helping them process the information and ask relevant questions. By addressing families’ concerns and clarifying medical jargon, advocates contribute to a more informed and empowered decision-making process (Selman et al., 2019).
Furthermore, family engagement extends beyond medical aspects to encompass emotional and psychological support. Advocates can offer a compassionate presence to families, acknowledging their emotional struggles and providing comfort. According to McEnhill et al. (2018), emotional support significantly impacts both patients and families during the end-of-life journey. Advocates can be instrumental in ensuring that families feel heard, valued, and supported, thus reducing the emotional burden they often experience.
Family engagement also involves respecting cultural, religious, and personal beliefs. Hospice patients and their families come from diverse backgrounds, and it is essential to honor their individual preferences. Advocates can play a role in advocating for cultural sensitivity within the healthcare team, ensuring that care plans are tailored to meet the unique needs of each family (Selman et al., 2019). This requires effective communication skills and the ability to bridge cultural gaps, allowing families to navigate the healthcare system with confidence.
Evolving Landscape: Recognition of Advocacy’s Importance
The importance of advocacy in hospice volunteering has gained recognition in recent years (Thompson et al., 2023). Healthcare providers and organizations increasingly acknowledge the vital role that volunteers, trained as advocates, play in enhancing patient care. This recognition is reflected in the growing body of literature focused on hospice care and the advocacy aspect.
According to Matthews and Lawson (2018), the authors stress that advocacy should extend beyond the clinical setting and encompass legal and policy aspects as well. Volunteers, as advocates, can help patients navigate complex healthcare systems, understand their rights, and access the services they are entitled to. This broader perspective of advocacy aligns with the evolving healthcare landscape, which is placing more emphasis on holistic patient support.
Conclusion
In conclusion, advocacy is a vital component of volunteering with hospice patients, ensuring patient-centered care, preserving dignity, addressing emotional needs, empowering informed consent, and promoting family engagement. Hospice volunteers trained as advocates have a unique role in bridging the gap between patients, families, and healthcare providers. The evolving landscape of hospice care recognizes the importance of advocacy, as evidenced by recent studies highlighting its positive impact on patient well-being and overall care quality. As the field of hospice care continues to evolve, the role of advocacy remains central in providing compassionate and holistic support to patients and their families.
References
Anderson, R. M., Toombs, M. R., & Dockter, N. E. (2019). Dignity-related concerns of hospice patients: A qualitative study. Journal of Hospice & Palliative Nursing, 21(4), 314-319.
Johnson, A., & Stenman, P. (2021). Patient participation in decision-making in hospice care: A qualitative interview study. BMC Palliative Care, 20(1), 1-9.
Lee, S. Y., & Kirchhoff, K. T. (2020). Providing information to patients with serious illness: When is it helpful and when does it harm? American Journal of Bioethics, 20(11), 74-76.
Matthews, H. A., & Lawson, L. A. (2018). Advocacy: A concept analysis. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 36(4), 373-383.
McEnhill, L., Caring for Life, B., & Caring for Life, D. (2018). Emotional support for patients during their last days of life: An integrative review. Journal of Hospice & Palliative Nursing, 20(5), 458-465.
Selman, L. E., Brighton, L. J., Hawkins, A., McDonald, C., O’Doherty, L., Robinson, V., … & Koffman, J. (2019). The effect of communication skills training for generalist palliative care providers on patient-reported outcomes and clinician behaviors: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 58(5), 831-845.