Narratives of Hospice Volunteers: Perspectives on Death and Dying

Abstract

Hospice volunteers must learn how to communicate in situations of death and dying. Their unique experiences illustrate the effect that the experience of death can have on a person's life. Semi-structured interviewing was used to elicit narratives from ten hospice volunteers, and a functional narrative analysis was employed to determine how hospice volunteers' experiences with the dying impacts their lives. The narrative function of sense-making was examined, and it was found that hospice volunteers use narratives to reflect and thereby interpret their experiences. Specifically, hospice volunteers' narratives facilitate the consideration of their own mortality as well as provide for the spiritual interpretation of death. Future research is needed to explore the benefits of training volunteers to tell narratives.