Experiences of mealtime assistance delivered by volunteers: an extended literature review
Intended for healthcare professionals
Evidence and practice    

Experiences of mealtime assistance delivered by volunteers: an extended literature review

Nyasha Catherine Msengezi Cardiology nurse, Nottingham City Hospital, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, England

Why you should read this article:
  • To understand the role of volunteers in providing mealtime assistance to older patients

  • To recognise the importance of training mealtime volunteers in patients’ nutritional and hydration status to ensure accurate documentation

  • To appreciate the benefit of standardised training for mealtime volunteers to improve patient care and safety

Trained mealtime volunteers are ideally situated to provide mealtime assistance to older patients in general hospital settings. Older patients are at risk of becoming undernourished and dehydrated while in hospital as a result of various factors, such as cognitive impairment and lack of mealtime assistance. This article details an extended literature review that was conducted to explore the lived experiences of older patients, staff, relatives and volunteers of mealtime assistance provided by volunteers. The findings suggest that continual use of mealtime volunteers in practice could improve the quality of care. Mealtime volunteers could be educated on the importance of communicating information pertaining to patients’ food and fluid intake to enhance patient monitoring. Furthermore, additional training for mealtime volunteers could be streamlined and standardised to improve patient care and safety.

Nursing Older People. doi: 10.7748/nop.2023.e1425

Peer review

This article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software

Correspondence

nyashamsengezi2003@yahoo.com

Conflict of interest

None declared

Msengezi NC (2023) Experiences of mealtime assistance delivered by volunteers: an extended literature review. Nursing Older People. doi: 10.7748/nop.2023.e1425

Published online: 11 January 2023

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