Objective There is growing emphasis on health care organizations to ensure that lay people are meaningfully engaged as partners on research teams. Our aim was to explore the perspectives of patients, family members and informal caregivers who have…
BACKGROUND: Child mortality rates during hospitalisation for acute illness and after discharge are unacceptably high in many under-resourced settings. Childhood vulnerability to recurrent illness, and death, is linked to their families' situations…
BACKGROUND: This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Non-communicating Children's Pain Checklist-Postoperative Version (NCCPC-PV) when used with children with severe intellectual disabilities. METHODS: The caregivers of 24 children…
Children with medical complexity (CMC) have complex chronic conditions with significant functional impairment, contributing to high caregiving demand. This study seeks to explore impacts of parental caregiving for CMC. Fifteen caregivers of CMC…
Background: Children with severe psychomotor impairment (SPMI) often experience sleep disturbances that severely distress both the child and his or her parents. Validated questionnaires for the assessment of parents' distress related to their child's…
A previous study found that parents of communicatively impaired children with severe cognitive impairments identified six core cues as indicating definite or severe pain in their child (J. Pediatr. Psychol. 27 (2002) 209). The frequency of each cue…
A child's illness and admission in a hospital are stressful and can negatively affect the child and his/her caregivers. The stress is further exacerbated when a child is critically ill and has been admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU). The…
The fear of "choking to death" is on the mind of most patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). So far, however, there have been no systematic surveys concerning the dying phase in a general ALS population. We therefore performed a…
BACKGROUND: The aim of the study was to make a comprehensive inventory of the physical, psychological, and social symptoms of children with cancer and their parents during the palliative phase and the extent to which health professionals address…
The main purpose of this exploratory study was to identify the supportive care needs of women with lung cancer who attend an ambulatory regional cancer centre. Lung cancer has more than a physical impact on those who are diagnosed with the disease,…
The death of someone close to a child often has a profound and lifelong effect on the child and results in a range of both short- and long-term reactions. Pediatricians, within a patient-centered medical home, are in an excellent position to provide…
PURPOSE: Family caregivers of children with cancer face emotional, psychological, and spiritual challenges coping with their child's illness. For ensuring comprehensive multidisciplinary pediatric care, there is a need to understand and define what…
AIM: In childhood, severe psychomotor impairment (SPMI) is associated with profound sleep disturbances. With the help of newly developed and validated measures, we systematically assessed how much a child's sleep disturbance affects parental sleep…
Abstract Background: The experiences of young people who have siblings with life-limiting illnesses are not well understood. Aim: The study proposed to identify the concerns of siblings of pediatric palliative care (PPC) patients. Design and…
OBJECTIVE: To shorten the Patient Engagement In Research Scale (PEIRS) to its most essential items and evaluate its measurement properties for assessing the degree of patients' and family caregivers' meaningful engagement as partners in research…
AIMS: To explore the lived experience of caring and care planning for a child with a life-limiting condition (LLC). METHOD: Using van Manen's conceptualisation of hermeneutic phenomenology, three focus groups were conducted with 21 paediatric…
BACKGROUND: Prior research has demonstrated that the presence of regret and unfinished business is associated with poorer adjustment in bereavement. Though there is a growing literature on these constructs among caregivers of adult patients, the…
BACKGROUND: Prior research has demonstrated that the presence of regret and unfinished business is associated with poorer adjustment in bereavement. Though there is a growing literature on these constructs among caregivers of adult patients, the…
A longitudinal feasibility study regarding quality of life and interventions for patients with advanced cancer or AIDS and their family caregivers was conducted to determine issues related to their recruitment and retention and to obtain pilot data…
BACKGROUND: Promoting resilience is an aspect of psychosocial care that affects patient and whole-family well-being. There is little consensus about how to define or promote resilience during and after pediatric cancer. OBJECTIVES: The aims of this…
CONTEXT: Parents of children with severe neurologic impairment (SNI) often face high-stakes medical decisions when their child is hospitalized. These decisions involve technology/surgery, goals of care/advance care planning, or transitions of care.…
Spinal muscular atrophy type 1 (SMA-1) is a severe neurodegenerative disorder, which in the absence of curative treatment, leads to death before 1 year of age in most cases. Caring for these short-lived and severely impaired infants requires…
At a time of increasing interest in palliative care in pediatrics, pediatric oncology programs may be failing to deliver adequate palliation to children with cancer. In a recent study, parents of children who died on a pediatric oncology service…
Adolescents and young adults (AYA) with advanced or terminal cancer have distinctive medical and psychosocial needs that may not have been adequately provided by either pediatric or adult palliative care services. A discussion group, as part of a…
BACKGROUND: Children dying of a life threatening disease suffer a great deal at the end of life. Symptom control is often unsatisfactory, partly because many caregivers are simply not familiar with paediatric palliative care. To ensure that a child…
OBJECTIVE: To examine whether typical pain behavior, as reported by caregivers, could be used prospectively to predict future pain behavior and to derive a subset of core items from the Non-Communicating Children's Pain Checklist. STUDY DESIGN:…
Medical advances in recent years have led to an increased life span for children with progressive, neurodegenerative illnesses. The purpose of this hermeneutic inquiry was to explore the experience of families caring for their child at home.…
BACKGROUND:
Experiential studies in paediatric palliative care are needed to enable an ongoing international agenda which supports the development of responsive family supports.
AIM:
To provide an in-depth exploration of the prevalent lived…
BACKGROUND: The number of children requiring long-term home ventilation has consistently increased over the last 25 years. Given the growing population of children with complex care needs (CCNs), this was an important area of focus within the Models…
Context Early integration of palliative care (PC) in hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) has demonstrated benefits, yet barriers remain, including perceived lack of patient/caregiver receptivity despite no data on attitudes toward PC and limited…
This paper reports the development and validation of a disease-specific measure of health status and well-being of children with severe cerebral palsy (CP). The Caregiver Priorities and Child Health Index of Life with Disabilities (CPCHILD) was…
Pediatric palliative care is an evolving field of practice in social work. As such, research plays a critical role in informing best social work practices in this area. For parents, caring for a child with a life-limiting illness (LLI) is a stressful…
BACKGROUND: Several guidelines for cystic fibrosis (CF) caregivers exist, but information about their implementation is lacking. METHODS: Adherence to European Consensus Guidelines for CF was studied by sending surveys to named healthcare…
Abstract Background: There is a paucity of research evidence to guide health care providers' practice in pediatric palliative care. At the same time, some clinicians and Institutional Review Boards are reluctant to approve such studies because of…
BACKGROUND: Children with medical complexity need complex assistance, that considerably affects caregivers' quality of life. They often need multiple medications, with a consequent relevant risk of errors or poor compliance. Galenic (or compounded)…
Background: Pediatric patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers have unique psychosocial needs. Anxiety often worsens throughout treatment for both patients and parents, and, if undertreated, can cause suffering. Animal-assisted interaction…
CONTEXT: The number of parents who care for a chronically ill child is increasing. Because of advances in medical care, parental caring tasks are changing. A detailed description of parental health-related quality of life will add to the…
CONTEXTS: Inadequate pain management in community paediatric palliative care is common. Evidence to inform improved pain management in this population is limited. OBJECTIVES: To explore the barriers and facilitators to paediatric community-based pain…
Setting goals and assessing outcomes are essential elements in palliative care. This paper describes a multiprofessional project, conducted under the auspices of clinical audit, which attempted to evaluate important outcomes of care. Over a six-month…
Background: Children with severe neurological impairment (SNI) commonly receive care in the hospital setting necessitating frequent interactions with clinicians. Yet, parents report that clinicians often have a limited understanding of their child's…
