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Background: Certified Child Life Specialists (CCLSs) provide developmentally appropriate psychosocial care to children to promote positive coping. However, little is known about the current professional landscape and opportunities for professional…
Objectives Perinatal palliative care is an evolving specialty committed to providing care for fetuses and babies with a life limiting condition diagnosed in the antenatal or neonatal period. It also includes supporting the parents and extended…
Pediatric home-based hospice and palliative care is a growing and important sub-field within the larger pediatric palliative care landscape. Despite research demonstrating the clinical and systemic efficacy of pediatric home-based hospice and…
Background: Little is known about the extent to which pediatric palliative care (PPC) clinicians are engaged in ethics consults or how they perceive interactions with ethics consultants. Objective: Describe the extent to which PPC team members serve…
Outcomes: 1. Participants will self-report the ability to evaluate the complexities and nuances of school (re)integration for pediatric patients receiving palliative care or hospice. 2. By utilizing an interdisciplinary approach which includes…
Outcomes: 1. Implement a scoring system to facilitate clear and concise communication of goals of care between palliative care teams, hospice staff, and families. 2. Understand the benefits of a scoring system for hospice staff to mitigate family…
Outcomes: 1. Participants will be able to describe the need for dedicated pediatric hospice support as well as the differences in care needs of children versus adults. 2. Participants will be able to identify at least three tangible actions to…
Outcomes: 1. Utilizing a quality improvement-approach, participants will self-report the ability to assess the implementation of several opioid safety components (i.e. opioid safety contract, open-ended question, and mental health screener) and how…
Background: There is a lack of research about the experiences and impact of having a sibling with a life-limiting condition. Studies focus on the sibling experience during childhood but the experience and impact during adulthood is unknown despite…
This Viewpoint dismantles the notion of a “good death” in pediatrics using quotes from bereaved parents and provides actionable alternatives to improve quality end-of-life care for dying children and their families. Plain language summary This…
BACKGROUND: The establishment of paediatric hospices improves the quality of care of paediatric nurses. AIM: To examine the effect of establishing paediatric hospices on the quality of care of paediatric nurses. METHOD(S): Data was collected between…
Perinatal palliative care is an emerging branch of children's palliative care. This study sought to better understand the pattern of antenatal referrals and the role of a specialist paediatric palliative care (PPC) team in supporting families…
Background/aims: Of the estimated 21 million children world-wide who need access to pediatric palliative care (PPC), about 97% currently reside in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC). Access to PPC programs in LMIC are limited, and successful…
OBJECTIVES: Although transfusion support is commonly used in oncological palliative care, there is still a paucity of literature. We examined the transfusion support provided in the terminal stage of the disease and compared the approach at a…
Simulated learning has well known positive effects but its use in palliative care education is limited. A quality improvement project was undertaken at a children's hospice to develop and evaluate simulation workshops. The aim was to increase the…
Background: Hospice and palliative medicine is important in the education of pediatric residents. Little is known about if and how residents' learnings during a pediatric palliative care elective fulfill core competencies and Pediatrics…
Objectives Using transmucosal fentanyl as an opioid for rapid acting, needle-free breakthrough relief of symptoms is established within paediatric palliative medicine.1 2 Medication administration via the buccal route is commonly used in paediatric…
Objectives Palliative care (PC) affirms life with goal to improve quality of life for patients with life-threatening conditions.1 PC referrals are influenced by multiple patient and provider factors, including staff awareness of guidelines, plus…
Full text linksCite Abstract Background: Parents of medically complex children hold deeply personal definitions of how to be "good parents" that guide their medical decision making and interactions with providers and are impacted by provider…
Background Children with life-limiting conditions are living longer, so relationships between nurses and families can span decades (Maunder 2013)2. Although long-term relationships between nurses and children/families in paediatric palliative care…
BACKGROUND: Intractable feeding intolerance in children with severe neurological impairment (SNI) is poorly defined and understood. OBJECTIVE(S): (1) To describe 9 children with SNI, where intractable feeding intolerance was thought to be a…
Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is widely used in pediatric patients as a successful curative therapy for life-threatening conditions. The treatment is intensive, with risks of serious complications and lethal outcomes. This study…
Introduction: Pediatric hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) confers a high risk of morbidity and mortality and palliative care (PC) integration in HCT may improve outcomes. PC services can aid in advanced care planning, symptom management, and…
CONTEXT: Hospital-based pediatric palliative care (PPC) may help optimize referrals to community-based hospice and home-based palliative care (HBPC) for children with serious illness, yet little is known about their referral practices. OBJECTIVES: To…
Significant disparities continue to exist in access to inpatient pediatric hospice care among children at the end-of-life. Increasingly more children at this stage are dying in the hospital or at home on hospice which is not always an acceptable…
BACKGROUND: Regional studies show that children with cancer receive medically intense end-of-life (EOL) care, but EOL care patterns, including palliative care utilization in Alabama, remain unknown. METHODS: This was a retrospective study of 233…
Context: Most children with cancer die in hospital settings, without hospice, and many suffer from high-intensity medical interventions and pain at end of life (EOL). Objective(s): To examine the effects of COMPLETE: a communication plan early…
Background: The rising prevalence of life-limiting conditions in children and young people warrants an evaluation of paediatric palliative care, hospice services and delivered care. Aim: First, this study aimed to develop a deeper understanding of…
Given that pediatric concurrent hospice care has been available for more than a decade, it is appropriate to seek an understanding of the value of this care delivery approach. Value is the cost associated with achieving beneficial health outcomes. In…
Background Estimating the local population needs for children's palliative care services can prove challenging. Data has shown that most children die in hospital and not all children with life-limiting conditions (LLC) are known to local hospices at…
After death care is an essential service offered by paediatric hospices in the time between the death of a child and their funeral or care being transferred to a funeral home. This service allows families time together, privacy and memory making…
There have been multiple recent reports regarding the inequalities in palliative and end of life care for people with learning disabilities; but little if any attention paid to the role of learning disability nurses working in palliative care.…
Background The transition process from paediatric to adult hospice care is uniquely challenging for young adults living with non-malignant life-limiting conditions as they are often declining in health with increasing dependence on their families for…
Background: Children and adolescents with serious conditions may benefit from simultaneous hospice and palliative care. Although the Affordable Care Act covers concurrent care, uptake has been limited. Limited descriptive data exist on receiving…
Background More young adults with life-limiting conditions are surviving into adulthood needing adult palliative care (Gibson- Smith, Jarvis, Norman et al., 2021). The evidence on appropriate service models is sparse (Clark & Fasciano, 2015. Am J…
Background The hospice recognised a gap in services for patients, relatives and carers aged 18-30 and that services should be more age appropriate (Smith, Mooney, Cable, & Taylor (eds.). Teenage Cancer Trust, 2016). In addition, young people are…
Background: Pediatric home-based palliative care and/or hospice provider (Physician, Advanced Practice Nurse, or Physician Assistant) home visits are an underexplored subject in the literature with little available descriptive data and limited…
Background Memory making is the process of creating mementos of a child with a life-limiting condition, who may be at or near end of life, providing a tangible and visual connection to the child who has died. Acorns memory making work already…
BACKGROUND: Disparities in end-of-life (EOL) care for children with cancer remain understudied. We addressed this gap by examining patterns of EOL care, with a focus on location of death and hospice utilization. METHODS: We used MarketScan - a…
BACKGROUND: Perinatal palliative care (PPC) is an emerging concept in fetal medicine that offers quality of life options and anticipatory grief management for families of fetuses with complex conditions. Few PPC outcomes are detailed in peer-reviewed…