Health Professionals' Views on Pediatric Palliative Care: A Mixed Methods Systematic Review

Health Professionals' Views on Pediatric Palliative Care: A Mixed Methods Systematic Review

Anastasopoulou E; Dousis E

International Journal of Caring Sciences

2022

Palliative Care; Professional-Family Relations; Terminal Care; Communication; Collaboration; Hospitals; Attitude of Health Personnel; Professional-Patient Relations; Health Services Accessibility; Human; Education; Reward; Evaluation; Pediatric Care; PubMed; Communities; Multidisciplinary Care Team; Systematic Review; Multimethod Studies

Introduction: Providing care for children in the end of life entails special challenges and exceptional requirements for all health professionals involved. Aim: The aim of the study is to explore the views of health professionals about pediatric palliative care. Methods: Systematic review of published relevant studies in PubMed and Scopus. The bibliography search took place for articles published from 2017 to 2022. The study included articles on qualitative, quantitative or mixed studies of health professionals in hospitals or in the community that provided pediatric palliative care to people <25 years of age, published from 2015 onwards, exploring their views on palliative care. Results: The results of 15 studies performed on 1,505 health professionals showed that their views focused on the rewards gained and challenges experienced from providing pediatric palliative care, the relationship they develop with the child and family, the collaboration and role of the interdisciplinary team, the role of communication and education, and to the effect of the care on patients and their families as well as on their own personal lives. They identify barriers at individual, team, organizational, hospital, community, and policy level. To address these barriers, they used strategies to support health professionals, patients and families, work and care organization strategies, strategies to improve relationships, communication, education, collaboration and intercultural care. Conclusions: Pediatric palliative care is considered both a reward and a challenge for health professionals but it is obvious that their poor and/or inadequate education and insufficient organization of work and care is in need of improvement in order to provide it effectively.

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