IntroductionVolunteering and non-profit sector are specific for each country depending on different historical, political, economic and social relations of their development. Similarly, the approach of non-profit sector and the differences in the extent of voluntary activities significantly vary in the individual countries. However, these differences also result from volunteering division into various areas. Numerous definitions of volunteering had been created on the basis of given facts in spite of some originally preferred aspects (e.g. emphasis on financial aspect, social and health characteristics, work and social processes, etc.). Each definition has very general scope and put its emphasis on free will to organize voluntary activities, to develop skills as well as potential contributions (Brozmanova Gregorova et al., 2011, 2012). As Rochester, Paine, Howlett, and Zimmeck (2010) claim in their work, volunteering may be performed regardless of race, sex, religion, disability, age, sexual orientation, and/or abilities and skills. Institutional definitions of volunteering are mostly general and lack particularities of processes, motives and aims. For instance, the concept of volunteering represents a cornerstone of civil society according to the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) (MVRO, 2014). Majority of authors agree on four basic features which characterize volunteering. This term is also considered as multidimensional. These four features are as follows: free will; reward (no expectations related to rewarding for provided aid); structure (formal and informal volunteering); orientation to recipient (contribution to recipient of provided aid) (e.g. Holmes and Smith, 2009; Salamon et al., 2012; Konrath et al., 2012; Musick and Wilson, 2008; Phellas, 2013). Contemporary literature describes volunteering as selfless and friendly activities which are performed for general welfare (Connors, 2012; Duguid et al., 2013; Salamon et al., 2012). In practice, there exist many characteristics of volunteering that differ in preferred aspect of voluntary activity, social environment, or culture of given country (EAC-EA and DG EAC, 2010; United Nations Volunteers, 2011; Cnaan, 1996).1. Health and psychological impacts of volunteeringThe most natural form of volunteering is characterized by informal and independent version of organization which takes into consideration present needs and requirements (Pavelek, 2014; Radkova, 2011). As consequence of team's long cooperation with many significant health institutions, such as Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic (MOH SR), Institute of Health Policies (IHP), National Health Information Center (NHIC), Association for the Protection of Patients' Rights - Slovak Republic (APPR), Association of Health Insurance Companies Slovakia (AHIC), Slovak Hospital Association (SHA), numerous social facilities that provide services of long-term health and social care, etc., we focused on the analysis of chosen economic aspects of volunteering in Slovakia in the research areas in order to find out quantifiable causalities of its development and determinants which will eliminate potential health and social risks that are related to social exclusion as well as morbidity rate. Over the last few years, there were published many researches which declared both health and psychological impacts on volunteers caused by voluntary activities' performance (Rochester et al., 2010; Holmes et al., 2009; Grimm et al., 2007; Li and Ferraro, 2005). These researches are very rare in Slovakia, however, in the U.S., they are performed very frequently (e.g. Krkoskova and Pavelek, 2008; Pavelek, 2011). The results of numerous foreign researches focus on health categories, such as lower rate of mortality, lower rate of morbidity and within it, lower rate of depression occurrence at higher age and provision of total organism function in relation to voluntary activities (Lum and Lightfoot, 2005; Schnittker, 2005). …
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Apr 21, 2021
Leonie Lockstone-Binney + 1
Open Access
