Palliative care interventions used by village health volunteers in Thailand

Palliative care (PC) is described by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an interprofessional approach that improves the quality of life of patients (adults and children) and their families who are facing problems associated with life-threatening illness. One strategy for increasing access to PC services is to integrate village health volunteers (VHVs) into community-based palliative care teams in Thailand.

The study had two specific aims: (1) to describe the cultural context of death and dying in a southern province in Thailand, and (2) to identify palliative care interventions used by VHV to promote dying in a southern province in Thailand.

The study was conducted using a qualitative, explorative descriptive design. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the sample's characteristics, such as means for continuous variables and frequencies for categorical variables. The transcripts from the interviews and field notes were the data sources for analysis. A 6-step thematic analysis method was used in this study to analyse transcripts from the focus group discussion (FGD) interviews and the field notes. A total of 77 VHV participants from two community hospitals and one rural health promoting hospital participated in the FGD. Of the participants, 96% were women. The mean age was 47.13 years, and the mean number of years spent in their current position was 11.24 years.

Five major themes emerged, the importance of the Thai cultural context, VHVs are the point of connection, basic physical care, supporting spiritual care and providing emotional support.

Future studies should explore how to integrate the findings of this study into culturally-tailored palliative care programmes and to provide training for VHV on effective interventions to provide emotional and spiritual support. Having the VHV on the interprofessional team could be a way to ensure compassionate end-of-life care for palliative care patients and their circles of support.