Study Description: We are inviting all PoPCRN members to participate in this project, which is a collaboration between NHPCO, NCHPP, and the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion at the Philadelphia VA. This project’s primary goal is to develop and validate a job satisfaction survey that assesses issues that are unique to hospice interdisciplinary teams.
Participating hospices will ask all of their employees (clinical and non-clinical) to complete a single survey, and will return completed surveys to us. This is a one-time survey study, with no commitment beyond that single survey. Surveys will be e-mailed to a primary point of contact at the participating hospices and distributed to eligible staff members. The surveys will be anonymous and can be returned by hospices in one packet. The survey should take between 15-30 minutes to finish.
NOTE: This is a survey development study, which means that we will be testing versions of the survey in several “waves” that will lead us to the best possible survey at the end.
Throughout the study, we will be asking for your advice and feedback about the survey and incorporating your advice in the next version. This is an important opportunity to have a say in what the final survey looks like, and to make sure that it includes what’s really important to the field.
Site Characteristics: A study site should be a hospice agency (any hospice agency—we particularly want to include smaller programs, rural programs and others to be sure that their issues are included in the survey); have staff willing to complete a survey about their work experiences and satisfaction; identify a site Investigator who is able to communicate via email and email attachments.
Site Investigator: Because this is a one-time staff survey, the site investigator’s responsibilities are much less than they are for most other studies. Still, the site Investigator will need to: 1) Make sure that any necessary approvals are obtained at the site (Institutional Review Board (IRB), Human Subjects Committee (HSC) or Ethics Committee (EC); 2) Receive the survey via e-mail, make copies of the survey, and distribute to all eligible staff members.
3) Collect all completed surveys and return surveys by mail.
How will hospices benefit from participating?
Although we do not have the funds to pay hospices, we can offer each participating hospice a summary of their satisfaction results. These summaries will contain a breakdown for each question and a summary of the question in each survey domain. In addition, for hospices that participate later in the development process, we will also offer preliminary results that describe how each hospice’s scores compare to those of other hospices.
We are also working with NHPCO staff to find a way to publicly recognize the hospices that contribute to this effort.
NOTE: All surveys and reports will be anonymous—they will not identify an individual staff member OR a hospice. Any reports will describe hospices only by number (e.g. Hospice #21) and only the site investigator from a site will know his/her hospice’s unique number.