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…
OBJECTIVES: To examine withdrawal and limitation of life-sustaining treatment (WLST) in an Australian paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and to compare this experience with published data from other countries. DESIGN: Retrospective chart review…
Aims There is a statutory requirement to review all child deaths in England. The aim of this study is to collate and evaluate child death data from all Child Death Overview Panels (CDOPs) within a single UK region to inform strategic planning.…
Managing end-of-life care (EoL) is always emotionally taxing. Honest discussions about prognosis and EoL decision-making are often delayed due to questions about the legal competence of adolescents and young adults (AYA) to make decisions for…
Parents facing the death of their child have a strong need for compassionate professional support. Care services should be based on empirical evidence, be sensitive to the needs of the families concerned, take into account the…
Recent high-profile cases have highlighted the difficulties that professionals caring for terminally ill or technology dependent children face. I am a paediatrician. I see children with severe problems, often chronic and frequently without a cure,…
Decisions about whether to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining medical treatment from children give rise to complex and value-laden judgments. While recourse to the courts is uncommon, judicial decisions provide an important source of guidance for…
OBJECTIVES: To examine the circumstance of death in the PICU in the setting of ongoing curative or life-prolonging goals. DATA SOURCES: Multidisciplinary author group, international expert opinion, and use of current literature. DATA SYNTHESIS: We…
Background: Pediatric palliative care (PPC) provides support focused on comfort and wellbeing for patients with serious illness and their families and assists with difficult care decisions, aiming to align medical care with the goals and values of…
BACKGROUND: End-of-life care for children with life-shortening conditions is provided in a range of settings including hospital, hospice and home. What home-based, end-of-life care should entail or what best practice might look like is not widely…
BACKGROUND: End-of-life care for children with life-shortening conditions is provided in a range of settings including hospital, hospice and home. What home-based, end-of-life care should entail or what best practice might look like is not widely…
BACKGROUND: Planning for care at the end of life (EoL) is an essential component of support and care for families of children with life-limiting conditions. The purpose of this review was to compare documented EoL planning with published children's…
Purpose/Objective(s): Few studies have examined the use of palliative radiation therapy (RT) in the pediatric population. This single institution study is one of the largest series reported of palliative RT practice patterns prior to and within the…
Simulation has been shown to improve the preparedness of practitioners in acute care. In this review we evaluate using simulation to prepare practitioners to deliver palliative care in multidisciplinary teams. The Joanna Briggs Institute approach was…
Learning Objectives: Assessing competence in pediatric critical care medicine (PCCM) training is challenging, and Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) were recently introduced to enhance the assessment process. There are 7 EPAs that define the…
Quality of life is a major consideration in children's palliative care, particularly at the end of life. Optimal symptom management is crucial in maintaining quality of life, with the aim being to ensure the child is as comfortable as possible.…
BACKGROUND: In the last week of life, the daily opioid dose in children is highly variable, making the use of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) a useful therapy option. Scientific data on the use of PCA in paediatric palliative care are rare.…
Pain is a common symptom at the end of life. The vast majority of pain can be readily managed if simple principles of practice are followed. Chronic pain requires continuous analgesia, and severe pain requires use of strong analgesics, most commonly…
BACKGROUND: For the better part of 100 years, acetaminophen (or paracetamol as it is known outside of the United States) has been a common first-line analgesic in pediatrics and is typically well tolerated with minimal side effects. Its use as an…
Emeritus Professor Edward Alan Glasper from the University of Southampton discusses the complexities of care delivery to children in hospital who have life limiting medical conditions.
Nursing education needs to prepare students for care of dying patients. The aim of this study was to describe the development of nursing students' attitudes toward caring for dying patients and their perceived preparedness to perform end-of-life…
Backgrounds: Many adult patients with cancer who knowthey are dying choose less intense care. High intensity careis associated with worse caregiver outcomes. Little is knownabout intensity of treatment of end-of-life care in children withcancer in…
AIM: To examine paediatric deaths following withdrawal or withholding of medical treatment (WWMT) from a hospital-wide perspective and identify changes over a 10 year period. METHODS: A retrospective review of medical records was conducted for all…
The importance of allowing bereaved siblings the opportunity to be involved and mourn the loss of a sibling family member has gained increasing recognition. Child family members may need support in the same way that parents might need support to cope…
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: The study aim was to develop a service evaluation tool for an advance care planning model implemented in community palliative care., BACKGROUND: Internationally, advance care planning programmes usually measure success by…
Pediatric palliative care (PPC) provides an extra layer of support for families caring for a child with complex heart disease as these patients often experience lifelong morbidities with frequent hospitalizations and risk of early mortality. PPC…
OBJECTIVE: The purpose was to describe the use of drugs with a possible or certain life-shortening effect in end-of-life care in infants and to evaluate the possibly lethal effect. DESIGN: For 292/298 deaths of live born infants (
Being able to communicate effectively is an essential skill for all nurses. Communication in paediatric end of life care can be challenging for both the student and lecturer as it is a rare experience and challenging to teach. Innovative approaches…
Despite the continuous improvement of pediatric palliative care, medical professionals still face various barriers regarding its implementation; our aim was to investigate this question in Hungarian pediatric oncology practice. Structured interviews…
Richard Griffith, Senior Lecturer in Health Law at Swansea University, reviews how the courts assist in settling disputes over the care of seriously ill babies and describes the test used to inform decisions about their treatment.
Neonatal death is the leading category of death in children under the age of 5 in the UK. Many babies die following decisions between parents and the neonatal team; when a baby is critically unwell, with the support of healthcare professionals,…
Research aim: The main aim was to describe the needs of parents caring for a terminally ill child during the course of the illness, the time of dying, and after the death of the child. Secondary aim was to identify the risk factors occurring during…
Background: The meaning of dying and death are underexplored concepts for Canadian children. Subsequently, it is unclear how children and stakeholders make meaning of children's holistic health needs at the end of life. Methods: A scoping review of…
BACKGROUND: A growing body of research indicates that physicians suffer high levels of stress, depression and burnout. Related literature has found that physician stress can negatively impact patient care. This study builds upon previous research…
Health care providers caring for patients at the end of life (EOL) are faced with a multitude of emotions such as guilt, anger, sadness, and helplessness. Because of the negative impact of initiating EOL care (EOLC) to the pediatric population,…
