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…
Siblings of patients that have lengthy stays in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) may be affected emotionally by their brother’s or sister’s condition, separation, or even death. In an effort to assess the effect of perinatal loss on siblings a…
Background Research on sibling death in a pediatric/neonatal intensive care unit is limited, despite many qualitative differences from deaths at home or in hospitals’ general care areas and has overlooked cultural differences. Objectives To describe…
AIMS: To elicit the views of children's nurses with regard to the personal, contextual and interprofessional challenges faced when delivering palliative and end of life care to children and young people in the community. METHODS: Semi-structured…
BACKGROUND: Communication plays an important role for the well being of patients, families and also health care professionals in cancer care. Conversely, ineffective communication may cause depression, increased anxiety, hopelessness and decreased of…
Percutaneous cordotomy using CT guidance has been shown to be a safe and effective means of reducing pain in adults with cancer in 2 large case series. Its effectiveness in pediatric patients, however, has not been reported. Here, the authors present…
The aim of this study was to understand children's cancer nurses experiences of providing palliative care in the acute hospital setting. Palliative care for children with cancer is rarely hospital- centred and predominately care is provided in the…
SUMMARY Chronic pain in children is a poorly recognized entity that is challenging to treat and leaves many families frustrated. Often, lack of an identifiable etiology along with the complex biopsychosocial nature of this condition leads to a…
SUMMARY This article presents a shared view from practitioners with special interests in diagnosing and managing primary brain tumors in both primary and secondary care, in adult and pediatric disciplines; it examines the complexity of identifying…
Improvement in treatment has led to decreased death in youth with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in developed countries. Despite this, youth with HIV are still at risk for increased mortality and morbidity compared with their uninfected…
Purpose: Given the burgeoning body of research relating to the psychosocial needs of adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer, this review aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties and appropriateness of the instruments available for use…
Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer represent a unique and challenging group of patients with distinct developmental and psychosocial needs that may be unrecognized or unmet during their cancer experience. Palliative care refers to the…
AIM: To evaluate the efficacy of a home care program, closely integrated with a medical oncology department. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The charts, prospectively recorded, of all the patients treated at home by the "L'Aquila per la Vita" Home Care Unit…
OBJECTIVE: to investigate and analyze communication in palliative care contexts from the perspective of nurses, based on Humanistic Nursing Theory. METHOD: this is a field study with a qualitative approach, in which ten nurses working in the…
BACKGROUND: After a child's death, parents may experience depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and increased risk for cancers, diabetes, psychiatric hospitalization, and suicide. Racial/ethnic differences are unknown. This longitudinal…
OBJECTIVE: Comparing demographic and clinical characteristics associated with receipt of palliative care (PC) among children who died in children's hospitals to those who did not receive PC and understanding the trends in PC use. METHODS: This…
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: There is increasing unmet need for solid organ donation. Alternative donor sources, such as donation after circulatory determination of death (DCDD), are needed. The objective of this study was to examine the impact of DCDD…
OBJECTIVE: To identify and illustrate common explicit heuristics (decision-making aids or shortcuts expressed verbally as terse rules of thumb, aphorisms, maxims, or mantras and intended to convey a compelling truth or guiding principle) used by…
The anticipated death of a child or young person is a relatively rare occurrence in the Western world. Many families receive support from children's health-care services until the late stages of palliation, with adult community nurses being involved…
OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the quality of care offered to terminally ill children and their families in the last days of life in two Brazilian Paediatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs) from the parents' perspectives. METHODS: This was a qualitative,…
Cancer is the leading cause of disease-related death in children and adolescents. Pediatric patients with cancer suffer greatly at the end of life. However, palliative care interventions can reduce suffering and significantly improve the care of…
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized trials that include patient-reported outcomes (PROs) often provide crucial information for patients, clinicians and policy-makers facing challenging health care decisions. Based on emerging methods,…
BACKGROUND: The United Kingdom has led the world in the development of children's palliative care. Over the past two decades, the illness trajectories of children with life-limiting conditions have extended with new treatments and better home-based…
BACKGROUND: Children's palliative care services are developing. Rational service development requires sound epidemiological data that are difficult to obtain owing to ambiguity in the definitions both of the population who needs palliative care and…
BACKGROUND: The introduction of paediatric palliative care and referral to specialised teams still occurs late in the illness trajectory of children with life-limiting diseases. The aim of this ongoing multipart study was to develop a screening…
BACKGROUND: Children's palliative care is a relatively new clinical specialty. Its nature is multi-dimensional and its delivery necessarily multi-professional. Numerous diverse public and not-for-profit organisations typically provide services and…
BACKGROUND: Hip fractures constitute an economic burden on healthcare resources. Most persons with a hip fracture undergo surgery. As morbidity and mortality rates are high, perioperative care leaves room for improvement. Improvement can be achieved…
