Compassion, Quality of Life and Perceived Social Support of Palliative Care Volunteers

Palliative care is a multidisciplinary approach to specialized medical and nursing care for people suffering with life-limiting illnesses. This paper aims to find out the influence of selected demographic variables on compassion, professional quality of life and perceived social support among palliative volunteers. The participants of the study consisted of 150 volunteers’ selected using simple random sampling. The instruments used were Compassion scale, Professional Quality of Life scale, Perceived Social Support scale and a Personal data sheet. t-test, one-way ANOVA and Scheffe's F were used to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that except in the case of mindfulness, the biological sex of the palliative volunteers doesn't have any significant role in volunteering. There exists significant difference between married and unmarried palliative volunteers on perceived social support, some components of compassion and burn-out. Separation, mindfulness, disengagement, burnout and secondary trauma differ significantly among the six groups based on education. This study also suggests that birth order has a role in how much one is concerned about people who suffer.