Burden experienced by community health volunteers in Taiwan: a survey

Community health volunteers (CHVs) in Taiwan assist with the delivery of health promotion and monitoring activities across the community, contributing significantly to the health workforce and service delivery. As unpaid workers, their role is extremely important to the ongoing delivery of community care to a rapidly aging population in Taiwan [1, 2]. Volunteers are also used effectively to supplement the health workforce in many other countries [3‐6] and, given the current constraints on health service delivery in many developed countries, offer a potential solution to health staff shortages. Currently, however, little is known about the burden experienced by these volunteers while carrying out their role, especially those undertaking this role in Taiwan. This paper presents the results of a study that measured the burden experienced by a sample of CHVs in northern Taiwan.

In Taiwan, approximately 300 Community Health Promotion Development Centres (CHPDCs) in cities and communities contribute to the healthy community-development programme funded by the national Department of Health [7]. The volunteers of each CHPDC are educated to assist residents by delivering health promotion and health monitoring activities. The CHVs are important to the delivery of health services because they help to diffuse health promotion in their local community and complement the paid workforce in the area of health monitoring [7‐10]. In particular, their role includes working with people with a disability, the elderly, and women and children. Community health volunteers are also expected to visit families for the purpose of monitoring health. For example, they provide blood pressure measurement for older community residents, and conduct health behaviour change programs such as cessation of smoking and betel nut chewing [7].

To become a CHV, a person must be nominated by the leader of a local community association and attend a volunteer training course. After completing the course, volunteer duties are determined by the leader of the centre. The CHVs, like other community health workers, are expected to maintain and promote the health of the community [11]. In Taiwan there are three levels of CHVs. The ‘fundamental’ volunteers are the newest volunteers, those who have just begun in the role. ‘Cadre’ level volunteers are more experienced and capable. ‘Leaders’ are the most experienced volunteers; all volunteers undertake health promotion activities in the community while the ‘leaders’ also oversee the work of other volunteers. Volunteer services are overseen by the head of the CHPDC (known as the Chief). All ‘Chiefs’ are volunteers for the program. Some are also chiefs of a neighbourhood or a village. Chiefs are in charge of the community health promotion development program, they work with other volunteers and leaders in the community, organise volunteer teams, and plan how to use the minimal funding received from the Government or community for health promotion activities.

Burden, an accepted component of burnout, can be avoided or ameliorated if detected early. Most research on volunteer burden to date has focused on the burden experienced by family care givers in the community, especially of the elderly with dementia. It has been suggested that non-family volunteers are affected by the same type of negative impacts, or burdens, as for example, those experienced by family carer givers [12‐14]. However, previous research on burden experienced by community health volunteers in countries other than Taiwan identified the following: work related to the physical and emotional nature of the role, the time taken to undertake the activity, insufficient emotional support from family, other volunteers, community health nurses and residents, lack of instrumental support, poor communication skills, lack of cooperation and lack of confidence [15‐17].

The study examined the relationships between a series of demographic variables and the role-related burden experienced by CHVs in Taiwan. CHVs complement the health workforce, and particularly assist paid community health workers. Understanding their level of role-related burden and finding ways to overcome it so that they continue volunteering in the future is critical as attrition from the volunteer role is high. The level of burden identified in the study was relatively low, which may be related to the rewarding social interactions associated with the role, the feelings of being useful to others, and the approval of volunteer work by society [18‐20]. It is also possible that the volunteers with a higher level of burden than those who participated in the study had already left the service. In addition, those who participated in the study might not have felt as burdened by their role as those who did not participate, leading to an underestimation of burden. The results, however, indicate that those who are female, middle-aged, married and with a high school level education dominate the sample. This is consistent with other similar studies of volunteers [6, 21, 22] that found volunteers tended to be predominantly female, aged between 50 and 69 years, with a high school level education, and married. Other studies have found that ability to undertake volunteer activities depends upon the number and age of children, parents’ ages, marital status, employment status, and the nature of the volunteer work [23‐25]. Furthermore, according to statistics from the Taiwan Ministry of Interior [6], the percentage of volunteers over the age of 65 years has risen from 8.81% in 2001 to 14.05% in 2010, indicating that healthy older persons in Taiwan are volunteering at higher rates than ever before.

Most prior research on CHVs has been undertaken using a qualitative approach and has therefore not attempted to measure the degree of difficulty that volunteers experience as they carry out their role. The results of this study reveal that CHVs in Taiwan experience a relatively low level of burden, similar to the results obtained by Murayama at el [26]. Volunteers give their time freely with the expectation of benefit to the local community [24, 27]. However, the low participation by the community residents in planned healthcare activities, the presence of fraudulent groups in Taiwan (people involved in criminal activity who try to gain entry to homes for fraudulent purposes) that cause community members to be suspicious of newcomers including community health volunteers, and misunderstanding by the community residents about the health service availability, resulted in burden for the volunteers. Burden was also experienced because of insufficient numbers of volunteers available to carry out the required activities and individual volunteers having large numbers of people to serve. Previous studies have reported similar results [15, 28, 29].

Interestingly, the study found that those who perceived their current health condition as good (97.8%) experienced less role-related burden. A study by Erlinghagen and Hank [30] found a strong relationship between health status and the rate of engagement in voluntary work, with much lower activity rates among those who perceived their current health status as ‘fair or worse’ (0. 6%) than those who reported ‘good or better’ health (12%). Wilson [24] claims that volunteering is not only able to improve one’s health, but also is able to preserve good health and keep healthy volunteers healthy.

The present research adds to the current knowledge base by enhancing understanding of burden experienced by volunteers from different facilities: community, hospital and public health centres. The burden experienced was statistically significant between groups, with hospital based volunteers experiencing higher levels of burden than the community or public health centre based CHVs, when adjusted for the confounding effects of age and employment status. One explanation for these differing levels of burden may be that volunteers at hospital based centres serve clients who seek medical support from broader regions around the hospital and may not be local residents. The clients may also have more serious health issues. Our findings also reveal that volunteers who served in a rural area experienced a lower level of burden than volunteers who served in an urban area. This finding is in direct contrast to the finding of Freeman at el. [31], who found that rural volunteers had high levels of attrition due to high levels of burden and difficulty in meeting continuing education requirements. The difference between the study contexts and different sampling techniques may account for the disparity. However, as large numbers of people live in urban areas, it could be argued that there is a greater demand for health promotion and monitoring activity in urban areas.

Most studies of community volunteers argue that when volunteers experience greater satisfaction and perceive more relative benefits from their role, they are likely to remain actively involved for longer periods of time [16, 32, 33]. Unfortunately, this study shows that the longer a person has volunteered overall the more s/he felt burdened. This result may indicate that more experienced volunteers are expected to take on more responsibility, manage more people, and oversee the work of other volunteers, which may increase their level of burden.

This study had several limitations in relation to methodological and sampling issues. First, the study sample was drawn only from community health services in the Northern regions of Taiwan. CHVs in other areas may have different results. In addition, the demographics section did not ask the volunteers about the number and ages of their children, and the age of their parents. Further, the design was cross-sectional rather than longitudinal, so it only offers a snapshot in time that does not allow causative conclusions to be drawn. In addition, because volunteers who had left the service were not interviewed, survivor bias could be present.

CHVs have an important role that adds significantly to the health workforce and provides many services that would otherwise be unavailable because of funding cutbacks. In this study, 435 participants completed the BCHV questionnaire. The overall mean of the volunteer burden was low on average. However, several items of the BCHV revealed areas of higher burden that need to be addressed in the future to prevent further attrition of community volunteers. The results of the multivariate adjusted regression analysis revealed significant differences in overall volunteer burden depending on the number of people served on average per week, marital status, and whether or not volunteers worked as health promotion volunteers. Volunteers who served many hours, and who perceived their own health as not good, felt more burdened than other volunteers.