Exploring Volunteers' Experiences in Health TAPESTRY

Volunteers' and volunteer coordinators' perceptions about their experiences in Health TAPESTRY overall, and specifically in regards to their understanding of their role; the training that was offered and how it did or did not support them in carrying out their role effectively; the process of engagement in the program from onboarding through the volunteer coordination to conducting home visits with clients; and the perceived outcomes of volunteering, including the impact of volunteering on their own health and wellness. This will be collected through qualitative data: focus groups for volunteers and interviews for volunteer coordinators at the 12-month mark, and volunteer narratives which are written post-client-visits.

The change in compassion over time during participation as a Health TAPESTRY volunteer will be measured via the Professional Quality of Life survey (ProQOL), which measures both compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction through 30-items on 5-point scales ranging from "never" to "very often". Collected every 3 months for a 12 month period.

Volunteers' physical activity will be measured via the International Physical Activity Survey (IPAQ). Respondents indicate how many days in the past seven days, and for how many minutes, they have engaged in vigorous and moderate intensity activity and walking activity. Scores for vigorous and moderate intensity activity, and walking activity are calculated by multiplying the days by the number of minutes on one day by the metabolic equivalent of task (MET) value for the activity. The MET values used for vigorous and moderate intensity activity and walking are 8.0, 4.0, and 3.3 respectively. Collected at baseline and 12 months.

Volunteers' quality of life will be measured via the five-level EuroQol five-dimension (EQ-5D-5L). The EQ-5D-5L asks respondents to rate their current ability in five domains: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain, and anxiety/depression, on a five-level scale. In addition, respondents are asked to rate their current health state on a scale from 0 ('worst health you can imagine') to 100 ('best health you can imagine'). A score from the five domains is calculated using a macro program and ranges from 0 to 1. Collected at baseline and 12 months.

Volunteers' attitudes toward older adults will be measured via the UCLA Geriatric Attitudes Scale.This 14-item survey measures volunteers' attitudes of older adults on a 5-point scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". Collected at baseline and 12 months.

Volunteer empathy will be measured via the Basic Empathy Scale (BES), a 20-item scale based on a two-factor model of empathy. It includes 9 items evaluating cognitive empathy and 11 items evaluating affective empathy. Participants are asked to respond to each item on a five-point scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". With permission from the author, language on the BES was slightly altered to fit a North American audience. Collected at baseline and 12 months.

A subscale of Clary & Snyder's Volunteerism Questionnaire, the Reasons for Volunteering sub-scale has 20-items and asks participants to respond to each item on a 7-point scale ranging from "not at all important/accurate for you" to "extremely important/accurate for you". Collected at baseline.

A subscale of Clary & Snyder's Volunteerism Questionnaire, the Volunteering Outcomes sub-scale has 18 items, and primarily asks participants to respond to each item on a 7-point scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". Collected at 12 months.