The Role of Volunteers in Enhancing Resident Quality of Life in Long-Term Care: Analyzing Policies that May Enable or Limit this Role

Abstract

Abstract Research has shown that long-term care (LTC) volunteers play important roles in enhancing the quality of life (QoL) of older LTC residents, often through providing unique forms of relational care. Guided by Kane’s QoL domains, we used a modified objective hermeneutics method to analyze how unique volunteer roles are represented and supported in provincial policies in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Nova Scotia. We found that policies define volunteer roles narrowly, which may limit residents’ QoL. This happens through (1) omitting volunteers from most regulatory policy, (2) likening volunteers to supplementary staff rather than to caregivers with unique roles, and (3) overemphasizing residents’ safety, security, and order. We offer insights into promising provincial policy directions for LTC volunteers, yet we argue that further regulating volunteers may be an inadequate or ill-suited approach to addressing the cultural, social, and structural changes required for volunteers to enhance LTC residents’ QoL effectively.