Optimising Volunteer-Staff Partnerships For Better Patient Care In Rehabilitation: A Mixed Method Research

Background: Volunteers play a vital role in enhancing patient care in rehabilitation with their versatility. While volunteers are able to work in both clinical and non-clinical settings in hospitals and rehabilitation organisations, their experience needs to be explored to optimise patient care. This research aims to investigate the challenges, enablers and best practices within the volunteer programme in a national rehabilitation hospital through mixed methods research.

 

Approach: This study adopts a mixed methods framework to examine volunteers’ impact through quantitative and qualitative methods. The hospital has collected data through surveys from volunteers to gather insights into their satisfaction, work environment, and perceived impact. Researchers conducted

semi-structured interviews with volunteers to explore deeper perspectives on teamwork and volunteer integration by inductive thematic analysis.

 

Results: The survey achieved a 57.9% response rate, with 55 active volunteers completing the questionnaire. Volunteers reported high satisfaction with their onboarding process, with an average score of 4.56 out of 5. All participants felt adequately supported within the hospital, and verbal appreciation

(85.5%) emerged as the most common form of recognition. Most respondents (94.5%, n=52) believed their work had a meaningful impact on patients’ well-being. Early analysis of interviews yields two recurring themes: motivation and sense of barriers to volunteer.

 

Implications: Current findings highlight the importance of collaboration between hospital volunteers and staff in enhancing the quality of care within a rehabilitation setting. The study is capturing volunteers’ contributions to providing holistic patient care and identifying areas for improvement within the volunteer programme at the healthcare organisation. By combining digital and data-driven evaluation with qualitative insights, this ongoing research provides evidence to strengthen volunteer integration into rehabilitation teams and offers transferable lessons for workforce development in integrated care internationally.