IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0232718.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Motivations for volunteering time with older adults: A qualitative study

Author

Listed:
  • Anne Same
  • Hannah McBride
  • Caitlin Liddelow
  • Barbara Mullan
  • Courtenay Harris

Abstract

Improved health, wellbeing and quality of life are associated with older adults living well at home. Enabling older adults to remain at home requires organisations to consider different workforce models to support these initiatives. Volunteers are often used by organisations providing such services. However, given the changing nature of the volunteer industry, volunteer recruitment and retention practices must be better understood. This study sought to understand individuals’ motivations to volunteer in aged care home support. Eighteen volunteers were recruited from not-for-profit aged support organisations in Perth, Western Australia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and five themes were thematically interpreted: What’s Important to Me?, Learning and Growth, Somewhere to Belong, Meet Me in the Middle, and Not Just a Number. Fulfilling volunteers’ desires for interest, social connection, self-growth, recognition, and support appeared conducive to positive volunteering experiences. These findings may suggest avenues to capture and retain volunteers in aged care home support.

Suggested Citation

  • Anne Same & Hannah McBride & Caitlin Liddelow & Barbara Mullan & Courtenay Harris, 2020. "Motivations for volunteering time with older adults: A qualitative study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-13, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0232718
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0232718
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0232718
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0232718&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0232718?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marieke Van Willigen, 2000. "Differential Benefits of Volunteering Across the Life Course," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 55(5), pages 308-318.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matthias Lühr & Maria K. Pavlova & Maike Luhmann, 2022. "They are Doing Well, but is it by Doing Good? Pathways from Nonpolitical and Political Volunteering to Subjective Well-Being in Age Comparison," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 1969-1989, June.
    2. Thomas Akintayo & Niina Häkälä & Katja Ropponen & Elsa Paronen & Sari Rissanen, 2016. "Predictive Factors for Voluntary and/or Paid Work among Adults in their Sixties," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 1387-1404, September.
    3. Trine Filges & Anu Siren & Torben Fridberg & Bjørn C. V. Nielsen, 2020. "Voluntary work for the physical and mental health of older volunteers: A systematic review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(4), December.
    4. John F. Helliwell & Haifang Huang & Max B. Norton & Shun Wang, 2019. "Happiness at Different Ages: The Social Context Matters," Springer Books, in: Mariano Rojas (ed.), The Economics of Happiness, chapter 0, pages 455-481, Springer.
    5. Okun, Morris A. & August, Kristin J. & Rook, Karen S. & Newsom, Jason T., 2010. "Does volunteering moderate the relation between functional limitations and mortality?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(9), pages 1662-1668, November.
    6. Matthias Lühr & Maria K. Pavlova & Maike Luhmann, 2022. "Nonpolitical Versus Political Participation: Longitudinal Associations with Mental Health and Social Well-Being in Different Age Groups," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 865-884, February.
    7. Jun Nakahara, 2013. "Effects of Social Activities outside the Home on Life Satisfaction among Elderly People Living Alone," International Journal of Psychological Studies, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 5(1), pages 112-112, March.
    8. Heng Qu, 2022. "Differential Associations Between Volunteering and Subjective Well-Being by Labor Force Status: An Investigation of Experiential and Evaluative Well-Being Using Time Use Data," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 1737-1770, April.
    9. Wang, Wei-Pang & Wu, Li-Hsueh & Zhang, Wei & Tsay, Ruey-Ming, 2019. "Culturally-specific productive engagement and self-rated health among Taiwanese older adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 229(C), pages 79-86.
    10. Min-Ah Lee, 2019. "Volunteering and Happiness: Examining the Differential Effects of Volunteering Types According to Household Income," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 795-814, March.
    11. Marcel Erlinghagen & Karsten Hank, 2005. "Participation of Older Europeans in Volunteer Work," MEA discussion paper series 05071, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    12. Christian Kroll, 2011. "Different Things Make Different People Happy: Examining Social Capital and Subjective Well-Being by Gender and Parental Status," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 104(1), pages 157-177, October.
    13. Marcel Erlinghagen, 2007. "Die Beteiligung an ehrenamtlicher Arbeit und informeller Hilfe nach dem Renteneintritt: Analysen mit dem Sozio-oekonomischen Panel," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 27, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    14. Yi-De Liu, 2017. "Quality of Life as Event Legacy: an Evaluation of Liverpool as the 2008 European Capital of Culture," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 12(3), pages 653-670, September.
    15. Kumiko Nonaka & Hiroyuki Suzuki & Hiroshi Murayama & Masami Hasebe & Takashi Koike & Erika Kobayashi & Yoshinori Fujiwara, 2017. "For how many days and what types of group activities should older Japanese adults be involved in to maintain health? A 4-year longitudinal study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(9), pages 1-12, September.
    16. Miha Dominko & Miroslav Verbič, 2019. "Subjective well-being among the elderly: A bibliometric analysis," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 1187-1207, May.
    17. Fothergill, Kate E. & Ensminger, Margaret E. & Robertson, Judy & Green, Kerry M. & Thorpe, Roland J. & Juon, Hee-Soon, 2011. "Effects of social integration on health: A prospective study of community engagement among African American women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 291-298, January.
    18. María Ángeles Molina-Martínez & Sara Marsillas & María Sánchez-Román & Elena del Barrio, 2022. "Friendly Residential Environments and Subjective Well-Being in Older People with and without Help Needs," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-14, November.
    19. Jens Detollenaere & Sara Willems & Stijn Baert, 2017. "Volunteering, income and health," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(3), pages 1-11, March.
    20. Irit Birger Sagiv & Limor Goldner & Yifat Carmel, 2022. "Civic Engagement in Socially Excluded Young Adults Promotes Well-Being: The Mediation of Self-Efficacy, Meaning in Life, and Identity Exploration," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-15, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0232718. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.