Competencies and Needs of Older Volunteers: A Comparative Survey

Considering Taiwan's impending status as a super-aged society, active involvement in volunteer work has been identified as a means to facilitate active aging, enhance social participation, and sustain the mental and physical well-being of older adults. However, volunteers require proper training to cope with the complex situations they encounter as first-line care providers. Existing volunteer training programs lack pretraining assessments to gauge preparedness for the challenges faced by frontline care providers.

This study was designed to identify the demographic characteristics, competencies, and needs of older adult volunteers and investigate the influence of demographic variables on key caregiving competencies.

A comparative cross-sectional survey design was adopted, and the data were collected using a structured self-reporting questionnaire. Simple random sampling was employed to select 73 community care centers in a southern city in Taiwan, with 1,000 older adult volunteer caregivers enrolled as participants.

The average age of the participants was 71.79 years, and most were female (80.8%), were married (64.2%), had a senior high school or higher level of education (51.9%), and had over 5 years of volunteer work experience (68.0%). The mean score for overall competencies and needs of older adults, as measured using the Older Volunteer Competency Scale, was 3.91±2.66. The three dimensions of this scale, ranked in descending mean score order, were volunteer service skills (4.49±2.76), volunteer service awareness (3.91±2.85), and volunteer interpersonal interaction (3.54±2.86). Age, volunteering experience, and educational level were shown to significantly influence the level of need. In terms of overall competencies and needs, the oldest age group had a higher needs level than the middle-aged group. Also, those participants with the least volunteering experience and the lowest educational level groups had the highest related needs. In terms of service awareness, both the youngest and oldest age groups demonstrated greater needs than the middle-aged group. Similarly, those with an elementary school or junior high school level of education were identified as having greater needs than those with a senior high school or higher level of education. In terms of service skills, those participants with the least volunteering experience and the lowest educational level groups had the greatest related needs. In terms of interpersonal interaction, those participants in the least volunteering experience and lowest educational level groups had the greatest related needs.

The needs of older volunteers are significantly influenced by age, length of volunteering experience, and educational level. Community care centers should conduct pre-employment assessments to optimally allocate tasks as well as provide opportunities for on-the-job training.