Purpose: To describe the process of delivery of pediatric palliative care from the perspective of a pediatric interdisciplinary team and the children's parents. Methods: A qualitative descriptive case study was conducted. Purposeful sampling took…
Working alongside local stakeholders, members of the French-African Pediatric Oncology Group developed a 3-year program to train pediatric oncology teams from 15 French-speaking countries in Africa in using analgesics and providing palliative care.…
BACKGROUND: Corneal donation is a rare event among pediatric patients dying in children's hospices in Italy. Previous research suggests that lack of knowledge and negative attitude of Health Care Professionals (HCPs) are the most relevant factors for…
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…
BACKGROUND: Despite evidence that referral to pediatric palliative care reduces suffering and improves quality of life for patients and families, many clinicians delay referral until the end of life. The purpose of this article is to provide a…
INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: To identify the knowledge of caregivers of pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) on the French law related to patients' rights and end of life, their views on withholding/withdrawing life-sustaining treatment (WWLST)…
BACKGROUND: 8,600 children are eligible for palliative care services each day in the US, yet many pediatric residents and pediatricians do not feel comfortable providing palliative/end of life care. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of a palliative…
OBJECTIVE: To determine the pooled effect of exposure to one of 11 specialist palliative care teams providing services in patients' homes. DESIGN: Pooled analysis of a retrospective cohort study. SETTING: Ontario, Canada. PARTICIPANTS: 3109 patients…
OBJECTIVE: To compare characteristics of family conferences at the bedside vs. the conference room in the PICU. DESIGN: Single-site, cohort survey study. SETTING: Thirty-three bed academic PICU in an urban setting. PARTICIPANTS: Ten PICU physicians…
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…
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…
BACKGROUND: Multidisciplinary teamwork is considered central to pediatric palliative care. Although different studies state that volunteers play an essential role in palliative care, little is known about the collaboration between volunteers and…
Palliative care services are increasingly available to primary care physicians for both expert consultations and services to seriously ill patients. The United States now has more than 1400 hospital-based palliative care teams and more than 4700…
CONTEXT: There are few randomized controlled trials on the effectiveness of palliative care interventions to improve the care of patients with advanced cancer. OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of a nursing-led intervention on quality of life,…
Palliative care has always been a part of the care of children. It includes any intervention that focuses on relieving suffering, slowing the progression of disease, and improving quality of life at any stage of disease. In addition, for even the…
Quality end-of-life care includes the management of distressing symptoms; provisions of care, including the assessment and management of psychosocial and spiritual needs; and respite from diagnosis through death and bereavement. Meeting the…
BACKGROUND: Palliative care improves care and reduces costs for hospitalized patients with life-limiting illnesses. There have been no multicenter randomized trials examining impact on patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, and subsequent health…
OBJECTIVE: To systematically review parent experiences with hospital care after perinatal death. DATA SOURCES: An evaluation of more than 1,100 articles from 1966 to 2006 was performed to identify studies of fetal death in the second or third…
Patients with advanced cancer experience a complex web of problems, all of which interact. Specialist palliative care services have developed to meet these needs, but their effectiveness should be considered. We sought to determine whether specialist…
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is familiar to paediatricians as the most common childhood muscular dystrophy and leads to severe disability and early death in the late teenage years if untreated. Improvements in general care, glucocorticoid…
Pain and substance abuse co-occur frequently, and each can make the other more difficult to treat. A knowledge of pain and its interrelationships with addiction enhances the addiction specialist's efficacy with many patients, both in the substance…
OBJECTIVE: To obtain feedback from families of children receiving palliative and supportive care about their care needs in hospital and in community settings. DESIGN: A two-phase combined quantitative and qualitative study. SETTING: Western…
Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer are a heterogeneous group. Nevertheless, there are sufficient unifying characteristics to form a distinct clinical entity. Management of this special group requires a broad-based interdisciplinary…
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…
Recent studies highlight the need for an integrated model for palliative and end-of-life pediatric care. About 55,000 children die each year in the United States and, on any given day, about 8,600 children could benefit from care that acknowledges…
OBJECTIVE: To implement and evaluate a quality improvement program of interdisciplinary palliative care education and support intended to increase the competence, confidence and ability to manage personal grief of health care professionals caring for…
Undernutrition, growth failure, overweight, micronutrient deficiencies, and osteopenia are nutritional comorbidities that affect the neurologically impaired child. Monitoring neurologically impaired children for nutritional comorbidities is an…
BACKGROUND: Little is known about the use of palliative care for outpatients who continue to pursue treatment of their underlying disease or whether outpatient palliative medicine consultation teams improve clinical outcomes. METHODS: We conducted a…
BACKGROUND: Specialized tertiary care facilities developed in response to the increasing numbers of adults with congenital heart disease (CHD). Because this patient population comprises a relatively new area of specialized cardiovascular interest,…
To determine whether hospital-based palliative care teams improve the process or outcomes of care for patients and families at the end of life, a systematic literature review was performed employing a qualitative meta-synthesis and quantitative…
Aim: To determine the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary cognitive behavioural treatment for adolescents with chronic pain. METHODS: Fifty seven adolescents (mean age 14.28 years) with chronic pain and 57 accompanying adults underwent an…
Despite repeated initiatives over the past decade, migraine remains under-recognised, under-diagnosed and under-treated in everyday clinical practice. The Migraine in Primary Care Advisors (MIPCA) group has produced new guidelines for migraine…
OBJECTIVE: Approximately 60% of deaths in pediatric intensive care units follow limitation or withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment (LST). We aimed to describe the circumstances surrounding decision making and end-of-life care in this setting.…
