Job Satisfaction Among Volunteers With Personal Cancer Experience

ABSTRACT

This study explored job satisfaction among 753 cancer-experienced volunteers from hospital, palliative care, and community-based oncology settings in nine provinces across Canada. Based on a conceptual framework including three components of volunteering—antecedents, experiences, and consequences—a mixed-methods design to explore job satisfaction was used. Findings from the quantitative and qualitative inquiries indicated that the level of job satisfaction was high and stress was not reported as a major concern. The four themes related to job satisfaction from the volunteers’ responses included learning, personal growth, challenge, and giving back related to their own experience with cancer. Future research should further investigate the important role of job satisfaction for social service professionals for training, marketing, and recruiting, plus the need to explore supports to sustain oncology volunteers in this most challenging environment.