Exploring States of Panacea and Perfidy of Family and Community Volunteerism in Palliative Care Giving in Kanye CHBC Program, Botswana.

AIM

The study aims to explore the attitudes and perceptions of family and community palliative care givers pertaining to volunteerism.

OBJECTIVE

The main objective is to involve palliative caregivers and their supervisors in assessing their contribution to care and evaluate their state of volunteerism.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The study attracted qualitative design and involved 82 palliative caregivers in 10 focus group discussions; one-to-one interviews with the nurses supervising them. Two slightly different interview guides were used as research instruments.

RESULTS

FINDINGS INDICATE THAT PALLIATIVE CARE GIVING VOLUNTEERISM IS MOTIVATED AND SUSTAINED BY: (1) Principles of love emanating from blood and kinship relations; (2) Patriotism and community responsibility over one another; (3) Adherence and respect of their culture and government call. Volunteerism was also found challenged by: (1) Predominance of the elderly and lowly educated women; (2) Poverty and heavy caseload; (3) Being shunned by the youth; (4) And lack of morale, recognition and motivation.

RECOMMENDATIONS

THE STUDY RECOMMENDS: (1) Socializing boys early enough in life into care giving; (2) Offering incentives to the caregivers; (3) Use of public forums to persuade men to accept helping women in carrying out care giving duties; (4) And enlisting support of all leaders to advocate for men's involvement in care giving.