Soutenir le bien-être des bénévoles en soins palliatifs : un essai contrôlé quasi randomisé évaluant un programme en ligne d’activités positives destiné à améliorer le fonctionnement psychosocial

Introduction

Palliative care volunteers operate in an emotionally challenging setting. Positive psychology exercises, designed to improve well-being, could help support them.

Objective

First, to evaluate the effects of a four-week online program of self-administered positive activities, tailored to palliative care volunteers, on their psychosocial functioning (measured in terms of mental well-being, engagement in volunteer activity, and depressive symptomatology), and secondly, four parameters likely to optimize the effects of positive psychology interventions: (a) initial attitudes about the possibility of improving well-being by practicing positive activities, (b) person-activity fit, (c) commitment to the program, and (d) continuation of practice.

Method

One hundred and one palliative care volunteers, quasi-randomized between two conditions (program vs. waiting list), completed online self-questionnaires measuring their psychosocial functioning, before, after the program, and four weeks later, as well as, for the experimental group, parameters for optimizing interventions.

Results

The attrition rate was 27.72%. In the sample analyzed (n = 73), the results showed no significant effect of positive activity practice on psychosocial functioning. The scores for the intervention optimization parameters were all above average.

Conclusion

Several hypotheses that may explain why no effect of the program on psychosocial functioning was detected are discussed. Further research would be useful to enable practice to take advantage of positive psychology techniques to preserve health and sustain long-term involvement of these key contributors to palliative care.