Parental Concordance Regarding Problems and Hopes for Seriously Ill Children: A Two-Year Cohort Study

Title

Parental Concordance Regarding Problems and Hopes for Seriously Ill Children: A Two-Year Cohort Study

Creator

Hill DL; Nathanson PG; Fenderson RM; Carroll KW; Feudtner C

Publisher

Journal of Pain and Symptom Management

Date

2017

Subject

pediatrics; Attitude to Health; Adolescent; Adult; Attitude to Death; Child; Cohort Studies; Female; Health Surveys; Humans; Infant; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Middle Aged; Only Child; Parents/ psychology; Pediatrics; Prevalence; Quality of Life/ psychology; Terminal Care/ psychology; Young Adult; decision-making; problems; Parent-Child Relations; Hope; Preschool; serious illness; child; female; male; young adult; adult; Child Health/statistics & numerical data; Critical Illness/epidemiology/ psychology; hopes; parental concordance; Philadelphia/epidemiology

Description

CONTEXT: Parents of a seriously ill child may have different concerns and hopes for their child, and these concerns and hopes may change over time. OBJECTIVES: In a mixed-method prospective cohort of parental dyads of children with serious illness, to describe the major problems and hopes perceived for their child, examine the degree of concordance between parents, and assess whether prevalence and concordance change over time. METHODS: Eighty-four parents (42 dyads) of seriously ill children reported the major problems and hopes for their children at baseline. Thirty-two parents (16 dyads) answered the same questions at 24 months. Problems and hopes were classified into nine domains. Observed concordance was calculated between parents on each domain. Data for parents of 11 children who died are reported separately. RESULTS: The most common major problem and hope domains at baseline were physical body, quality of life, future health and well-being, and medical care. Parental dyads demonstrated a moderately high percentage of concordance (69%) regarding reported problem domains and a slightly lower percentage of concordance on hopes (61%), with higher concordance for more common domains. Domain prevalence and concordance changed considerably at 24 months. Parents of children who later died showed markedly different patterns of domain prevalence and more extreme patterns of concordance. CONCLUSION: Parents of children with serious illness may have different perspectives regarding major problems and hopes, and these perspectives change over time. Parents of sicker children are more likely to be in either complete agreement or disagreement regarding the problems and hopes they identify.

Rights

Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

Citation List Month

April 2018 List

Collection

Citation

Hill DL; Nathanson PG; Fenderson RM; Carroll KW; Feudtner C, “Parental Concordance Regarding Problems and Hopes for Seriously Ill Children: A Two-Year Cohort Study,” Pediatric Palliative Care Library, accessed March 19, 2024, https://pedpalascnetlibrary.omeka.net/items/show/15085.