Canada - Statistics Canada's Health Profile features community-level data from a number of sources including Statistics Canada's health surveys, administrative data, and the census of population.
This report investigates the elements of care that are important to individuals at the end of their life. It argues that for too long the focus has been where people want to die rather than how. It delves deeper into the components of care that…
Context Although systemic analgesic therapies are the mainstay of pain treatment in pediatric palliative care, there are cases where they fail to adequately relieve symptoms or produce side effects that undermine effectiveness. Regional anesthesia…
Objectives Among patients successfully resuscitated from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and admitted to California hospitals, we examined how the placement of a do not resuscitate (DNR) order in the first 24 h after admission was associated…
This study is part of a longitudinal research aimed at analyzing the maintenance of negative emotional states in Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) during the first 2 years of disease progression. The specific aims of the present study were to examine the…
Palliative care suffers from an identity problem. Seventy percent of Americans describe themselves as “not at all knowledgeable” about palliative care, and most health care professionals believe it is synonymous with end-of-life care.1 This…
I know we're not supposed to have favorites, but Lizzy was one of mine. She was 8 years old. Her eyes still sparkled, even though her curly brown hair had long since fallen out because of radiation and chemotherapy for a malignant brain tumor. When…
OBJECTIVE:: Timely, high quality communication with families is essential to family-centered decision-making. Quality communication is represented by widespread documentation of prognostic, goals-of-care conversations (PGOCC) in the pediatric…
Introduction Communicating with patients about their feelings and preferences for the future is a challenging element of palliative care. Useful evidence exists, but most is embedded in social-scientific rather than clinical research.Aims and Methods…
BACKGROUND: Pediatric palliative care (PPC) programs facilitate the provision of comprehensive care to seriously ill children. Over the past 10 years many such programs have been initiated by children’s hospitals, but little is known about their…
One of the most difficult decisions that doctors and parents must make is the decision to withdraw life-sustaining treatment. Doctors find it easier to withdraw treatments in situations where withdrawal will be rapidly fatal rather than in situations…
OBJECTIVES: Pain in children with cerebral palsy (CP) is underrecognized, undertreated, and negatively affects quality of life. Communication challenges and multiple pain etiologies complicate diagnosis and treatment. The primary objectives of this…
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Advance care planning (ACP) is increasingly regarded as the gold standard in the care of patients with life-limiting illnesses. Research has focused on adults, but ACP is also being practiced in pediatrics. We conducted a…
Pediatric palliative care and pediatric hospice care (PPC-PHC) are often essential aspects of medical care for patients who have life-threatening conditions or need end-of-life care. PPC-PHC aims to relieve suffering, improve quality of life,…
Respiratory outcomes of patients with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) range from no oxygen requirement to chronic respiratory failure. Outcomes of least severe types of BPD are well described. Limited data exist on outcomes of patients with…
OBJECTIVE: To describe the incidence and outcomes of children with chronic respiratory failure secondary to severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) on chronic positive pressure ventilation (PPV) via tracheostomy at home. METHODS: We retrospectively…
We investigated longitudinally parental perceptions of siblings' bereavement after childhood cancer death. Parents were interviewed 6 months (n = 25) and 18 months (n = 75) post-death. Data are analyzed combined and over time. The following themes…
Aim The aim of this paper is to report an analysis of the concept of spiritual care of a child with cancer at the end of life. Background Spirituality is a vital dimension of a child's experience at the end of life; providing comfort; support; and a…
Background With the transition of care of cancer patients from the hospital to the home setting, parents are largely responsible for children's pain management. Children's cancer pain is undermanaged, yet, there is little empirical data on the…
Background Malignant pleural effusion (MPE) and ascites (MA) negatively impact quality of life of palliative patients. Treatment options are limited. This study's purpose is to examine the experience with indwelling tunneled catheters (ITCs) for…
Background Elevated distress has been well documented among parents of children with cancer. Family systems theories suggest that cancer-related stressors and parental distress have the potential to affect child-rearing practices, but this topic has…
Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships among advance directive status, principal diagnoses, and the discharge outcomes in community-dwelling, critically ill older adults. Method: Using administrative and clinical data…
Specialist paediatric palliative care is a relatively new area of paediatrics, and the interface with other disciplines can occasionally pose challenges for referrers due to lack of information about the diverse services available. Although services…
Palliative care, as with other health care services, is faced with the difficulty of competing for limited health care resources. Health care decision makers seek to maximize ‘value for money’ when selecting services to fund. The challenges for the…
This study identified and explored the informal social supports that bereaved parents found helpful following the death of their primary school-aged child. Ten participants were interviewed using a semistructured interview schedule. Data were…
The stress and uncertainty surrounding pediatric cancer diagnosis and treatment can be experienced as traumatic by both patients and their parents (e.g., Landolt, Vollrath, Ribi, Gnehm, & Sennhauser, 2003). Although previous studies have demonstrated…
Objective To describe the outcomes and the expected postoperative course for patients with do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders (DNR patients) who undergo emergency surgical management of bowel obstruction.Design We retrospectively identified all patients…
More than a century ago, the leaders of public health identified the infant mortality rate as a key measure to assess and understand the health of society.1 Today, the infant mortality rate of a country or region remains an important marker of public…
Transitions of care are periods of vulnerability and risk in our health care system. The risks for poor clinical outcomes and increased health care costs during transitions increase with poor preparation, planning, communication, and coordination of…
