Volunteer Involvement in Advance Care Planning: A Scoping Review

Volunteer involvement may support organizations to initiate and operationalize complex interventions such as advance care planning (ACP).

A scoping review was conducted to map existing research on volunteer involvement in ACP and to identify gaps in current knowledge base.

We followed the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. The review included studies of any design reporting original research. ACP was defined as any intervention aimed at supporting people to consider and communicate their current and future health treatment goals in the context of their own preferences and values. Studies were included if they reported data relating to volunteers at any stage in the delivery of ACP.

Of 11 studies identified, nine different ACP models (initiatives to improve uptake of ACP) were described. Most of the models involved volunteers facilitating ACP conversations or advance care directive completion (n = 6); and three focused on ACP education, training, and support. However, a framework for volunteer involvement in ACP was not described; the studies often provided limited detail of the scope of volunteers' roles in ACP, and in three of the models, volunteers delivered ACP initiatives in addition to undertaking other tasks, in their primary role as a volunteer navigator. Increased frequency of ACP conversation or documentation was most commonly used to evaluate the effectiveness of the studies, with most showing a trend toward improvement.

Current literature on volunteer involvement in ACP is lacking a systematic approach to implementation. We suggest future research should focus on person-centered outcomes related to ACP to evaluate the effectiveness of volunteer involvement.