Increasing access to evidence-based pediatric palliative care through continuing education of nurses

Increasing access to evidence-based pediatric palliative care through continuing education of nurses

Hamre TJ

2019

quality of life; Pediatrics; Palliative Care; pediatric palliative care; Nurses; nurses; Quality of Life

BACKGROUND: Each year approximately 42,000 children die and 400,000 children cope with chronic or life threatening illnesses in the U.S. Improved access to evidence based pediatric palliative care is essential to ease suffering, manage distressing symptoms and to improve quality of life. METHODS: A literature review was conducted. A panel of national pediatric palliative care experts validated and rated educational subcategories identified in the review in accordance to relevance and importance. RESULTS: The panel of experts rated 25 of 53 sub categories with a 0.78 percent agreement in both relevance and importance. Nine of those twenty-five sub categories had 100% agreement in relevance and importance among all the experts. CONCLUSION: Providing nurses with education on general, evidence based pediatric palliative care skills, identified by an interdisciplinary team of experts in the field, is critical for expanding knowledge and access to palliative care to all children in need of such care. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

February 2019 List