Hospice Core Professions' Views on Interdisciplinary Teams: A Qualitative Investigation

"We Are All Just Walking Each Other Home": Exploring the Lived Experiences of Rural Hospice Social Workers in "Companioning" the Dying

Social workers play a critical role on the hospice team including assessing risk and safety, advocacy, grief counseling, referral and connection to resources and providing guidance through advance care planning and advance directives. However, the voice of the rural hospice social worker is often absent from research. To address this gap in the literature, this study aimed to explore lived experiences of rural hospice social workers to better understand their role and challenges. Non-experimental qualitative research design was used for this study. Data was collected through in-depth qualitative interviews. A total of 19 rural hospice social workers participated in the study. We used a phenomenological approach focusing on the common lived experiences of rural hospice social workers and thus interviews were unstructured. Field notes and data were collected until data saturation was achieved. Five main themes were identified: (1) meaning of hospice social work, (2) role of hospice social workers, (3) vulnerability and realness, (4) self-care, and (5) rural culture. Based on these findings, we identified recommendations for hospice social work practice, research and policy, in general, as well as for rural hospice social work specifically. Future research could explore lived experiences of hospice professionals or of the dying and could also explore social worker experience of resource barriers.

Hospice social workers' perception of being valued by the interdisciplinary team and the association with job satisfaction

Being valued and respected by colleagues is an important contributor to job satisfaction in hospice and other health care settings. The purpose of this study was to examine how the perception of feeling valued by different members of the interdisciplinary team and interdependence of team members are related to hospice social workers' job satisfaction. The study aims were to examine: (1) the degree to which hospice social workers feel valued by other members of the interdisciplinary team; and 2) whether this is associated with job satisfaction. A nonprobability sample of 203 hospice social workers completed an online survey assessing job satisfaction, perception of feeling valued by each of the professionals on the interdisciplinary hospice team, interdependence of team members, and professional and personal characteristics. The final regression model for intrinsic job satisfaction included feeling valued by doctors and by other social workers, and interdisciplinary interdependence. The final model for extrinsic job satisfaction did not include any of the perception of feeling valued by others on the interdisciplinary team, although interdependence and the number of social workers at the hospice were significant in this model. Reasons for the difference in these models and the practice and policy implications are discussed.