Exploring Volunteers' Experiences in Health TAPESTRY, a Primary Care-Based Program

Health TAPESTRY aims to help people stay healthier for longer in the places where they live. As a person-focused, proactive approach, Health TAPESTRY incorporates trained community volunteers into the primary care team in a way that is seamless and complementary to the essential work that clinicians are undertaking each day. In the program, volunteers conduct home visits with older adult clients, complete questionnaires, and connect their clients to primary care and community resources. This study offers the opportunity to fill a major gap in the literature by investigating the experiences of volunteers within Health TAPESTRY and the effect on them of participation as an intervention in its own right.

Specifically, the study seeks to understand volunteers' experiences in the program and evaluate any effects that volunteering with the program has on the volunteers including with the volunteers health and wellness (specifically physical activity and quality of life), empathy, and attitudes toward older adults. The investigators will also look at how the volunteers patterns of compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction might change throughout involvement in the program, and how that connects to volunteer demographic characteristics like age and gender, as well as other characteristics like empathy, how many home visits are conducted, and the initial motivation to volunteer with the program.

This program evaluation study will employ qualitative and quantitative data collection strategies including surveys, narratives written by volunteers, and volunteer focus groups.