Paediatric palliative care delivered by an adult palliative care service.
BACKGROUND
In recent years, the discipline of paediatric palliative care has emerged in response to the awareness of the distinct needs of dying children. To date, in Ireland there is no paediatrician trained in palliative medicine, and specialist paediatric palliative care is generally delivered by adult trained teams.


OBJECTIVE
We wished to examine the experience of an adult palliative care service providing palliative care to children.


METHODS
The study entailed three stages: (1) a retrospective chart review of all children referred to the service; (2) a questionnaire survey; and (3) a focus group to explore the views of staff in caring for children.


RESULTS
The main themes highlighted were staff competence, staff stress, uncertainty of prognosis, resource implications and co-operation with other teams.


CONCLUSIONS
This study highlights some of the challenges for an adult palliative care team providing paediatric palliative care. Many skills developed for adult patients can be used in paediatric palliative care. Adult palliative care teams and paediatric teams have complementary skills. The challenge is to integrate services to meet the needs of terminally ill children.
O'Leary
Norma
N
St. Francis Hospice, Dublin. normaoleary@hotmail.com
Flynn
J
J
MacCallion
A
A
Walsh
E
E
McQuillan
Regina
R
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D017144:Focus Groups; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007494:Ireland; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires