Social media is an important access point for engagement of children and adolescents. For individuals with a life-limiting illness or serving as the caregiver for an ill child, social media can be a helpful outlet for support and information…
This article provides a brief overview on the role of poetry into the pediatric palliative and end-of-life care setting. Starting from examples, the author deepens possible applications to the world of children and offers a poem, from his direct…
BACKGROUND: Organ donation continues to increase worldwide, but in general paediatric patients remain less likely to receive a transplant. The inclusion of neonates as donors after cDCD should be considered in an effort to increase donation rates.…
Two separate bodies of literature point to the link between family bereavement and cardiovascular health and between sleep quality and cardiovascular outcomes. However, less is known about the joint influence of family bereavement and sleep quality…
BACKGROUND: Palliative sedation is consciously reducing the patient's consciousness to alleviate the refractory symptoms. However, studies on palliative sedation for children are scarce. We aimed to survey the symptom control and risks for children…
AIMS: To explore and describe the experiences, challenges and coping strategies of new nurses dealing with paediatric death in a clinical setting. DESIGN: A descriptive qualitative study design was used. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were…
Background: For children with life-shortening illness, achieving a "good death" can be a tacit goal. There is little understanding of how different stakeholders perceive what a "good death" might be. Objective(s): To review empirical literature to…
Background: The provision of pediatric palliative care in Asia Pacific varies between countries and availability of essential medications for symptoms at the end of life in this region is unclear. Objective: To determine medications available and…
Two bereaved mothers recount how they made meaning after the deaths of their children, recounting how opportunities to tell their stories in medical settings enabled them to construct narratives that promoted resilience and a sense of control.…
PURPOSE: Preparing a future nurse to respond to the complex and sensitive needs of a child and family during the end-of-life requires more than didactic content in a classroom. During clinical experiences, students may care for children diagnosed…
Background Technological advances have decreased PICU mortality but increased the number of children surviving with disability or technologically-dependent. Death in PICU most frequently follows withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy (LST),…
Early planning and knowing which factors to consider when planning the location of death (LOD) of a palliative child, may help minimize the burden of hasty decision-making in the future, and may provide families with a sense of control. The current…
BACKGROUND: End-of-life and bereavement care is an important consideration in intensive care. This study describes the type of bereavement care provided in intensive care units across Australia and New Zealand. DESIGN: Inductive qualitative content…
A reliable and valid measure of the quality of the dying experience would help clinicians and researchers improve care for dying patients. To describe the validity of an instrument assessing the quality of dying and death using the perspective of…
Canuck Place, North America's first free-standing pediatric hospice of its kind, opened in 1995 in British Columbia, Canada. The province-wide program encompasses a broad spectrum of services intended to support community-based care and provide…
Grounded theory methods were used to study the experiences of 8 bereaved fathers whose children received care in a home-based hospice program. In-depth, unstructured interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and coded for themes and categories. Every…
The death of a child creates especially poignant feelings and extreme stress, distress, and devastation for family members and healthcare providers. In addition, serious or long-term illness forces a reconstruction of our experiences with time and…
Three assumptions guiding research and clinical intervention strategies for people coping with sudden, traumatic loss are that (a) people confronting such losses inevitably search for meaning, (b) over time most are able to find meaning and put the…
Introduction: Patients may be admitted to hospital by paediatric palliative care units (PPCU) for different reasons, due to their different needs and clinical problems. The objective of this study is to present the data of patients admitted to the…
This study explored the experiences and needs of nine parents who had received hospital-based bereavement support following the death of their child from cancer, in Western Australia. Six prominent themes emerged from thematic data analysis: personal…
OBJECTIVE: To characterize patterns of care at the end of life for children and young adults with life-threatening complex chronic conditions (LT-CCCs) and to compare them by LT-CCC type. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey of bereaved parents…
The sudden or anticipated death of a child is one of the most challenging and unique experiences that children's nursing students will encounter in practice. There is evidence to suggest that the effect this can have on a practitioner can affect…
Background: There has been a breadth of research on the grief experience of parents following the death of a child. However, the role and impact of hospital-based bereaved services remain unclear. Aim: To identify services offered to bereaved…
This article compares the outcome and predictors of psychosocial distress of parents bereaved by young suicides, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and child accidents. One objective is to explore whether suicide bereavement is more difficult for…
Background: Pediatric patients with cancer have many opportunities for increased primary or specialty palliative care (PC). This is particularly true for patients with solid tumors who often have higher symptom burden and worse outcomes. However, how…
In England, a child death review process must be undertaken when a child dies, regardless of the cause of death. Scotland and Wales have their own version of the child death review process, while it is the author's understanding that Northern Ireland…
BACKGROUND: Discussing end-of-life issues with terminally ill patients is often considered distressing and harmful. This study was conducted to assess whether interviewing terminally ill patients and their caregivers about death, dying, and…
This study is concerned with dynamic processes that underly the rapid, degenerative changes associated with the "dying" stage of the multicellular organism's life cycle. The interaction between negative and positive feedback cycles is discussed:…
OBJECTIVE: For patients who die in hospitals, the regionalization of tertiary health care services may be increasing the home-to-hospital distance, particularly for younger patients whose care is especially regionalized and for whom access to and use…
The parents of a child who dies feel the emotions of shock, mourning, and confusion as they slowly come to accept the finality of the child's death. In contemporary America they frequently feel isolated and abandoned. The individuals and institutions…
Purpose: Pediatric palliative care focuses mainly on the children suffering from a life-limiting disease, but always includes parents and siblings. However, grandparents are also often highly involved in caring for the child and require additional…
Providing care to a spouse or partner who is dying and then losing that person are among the most stressful of human experiences. A longitudinal study of the caregiving partners of men with AIDS showed that in addition to intense negative…
Objectives: About 16,000 infants die in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) each year with many experiencing invasive medical treatments and high number of symptoms.1 To inform better management, we characterized diagnoses, symptoms, and patterns…
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Our findings offer guidance to improve aftercare for bereaved siblings and their families. Additional research is needed to further delineate the needs of bereaved siblings and to develop strategies to promote adaptation to…
