Pediatric Palliative Care: A Qualitative Study of Physicians’ Perspectives in a Tertiary Care University Hospital

The objective of this study was to assess the concept of palliative care for a group of physicians in a tertiary care pediatric university hospital. Grounded theory methodology was used. Data included 12 semi-structured interviews, field notes, research consent forms, research protocols, and articles published by the participants. Physicians involved in both research and clinical care of severely ill children were interviewed. Data analysis identified three principal themes. First, physicians limited their concept of palliative care to the relief of physical symptoms, equating palliative care with comfort care. Second, there was variation regarding the appropriate moment to introduce palliative care for children. Finally, many physicians were not comfortable using the term “palliative care”. Although this study was conducted in one Canadian centre, the results raise questions that should be examined in other settings. A vague concept of palliative care may delay the provision of palliative care to children.

Paediatric palliative care: a review of needs, obstacles and the future

AIM

This literature review offers a response to the current paediatric palliative care literature that will punctuate the need for a framework (i.e. the three world view) that can serve as an evaluative lens for nurse managers who are in the planning or evaluative stages of paediatric palliative care programmes.

BACKGROUND

The complexities in providing paediatric palliative care extend beyond clinical practices to operational policies and financial barriers that exist in the continuum of services for patients.

EVALUATION

This article offers a review of the literature and a framework in order to view best clinical practices, operational/policy standards and financial feasibility when considering the development and sustainability of paediatric palliative care programmes.

KEY ASPECTS

Fifty-four articles were selected as representative of the current state of the literature as it pertains to the three world view (i.e. clinical, operational and financial factors) involved in providing paediatric palliative care.

CONCLUSION

In developing efficient paediatric palliative care services, clinical, operational and financial resources and barriers need to be identified and addressed.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Nursing management plays a crucial role in addressing the clinical, operational and financial needs and concerns that are grounded in paediatric palliative care literature.

Conscientious objection: a potential neonatal nursing response to care orders that cause suffering at the end of life? Study of a concept

This article is an exploratory effort meant to solicit and provoke dialog. Conscientious objection is proposed as a potential response to the moral distress experienced by neonatal nurses. The most commonly reported cause of distress for all nurses is following orders to support patients at the end of their lives with advanced technology when palliative or comfort care would be more humane. Nurses report that they feel they are harming patients or causing suffering when they could be comforting instead. We examined the literature on moral distress, futility, and the concept of conscientious objection from the perspective of the nurse's potential response to performing advanced technologic interventions for the dying patient. We created a small pilot study to engage in clinical verification of the use of our concept of conscientious objection. Data from 66 neonatal intensive care and pediatric intensive care unit nurses who responded in a one-month period are reported here. Interest in conscientious objection to care that causes harm or suffering was very high. This article reports the analysis of conscientious objection use in neonatal care.

Barriers to palliative care for children: perceptions of pediatric health care providers

OBJECTIVE

The goal was to explore barriers to palliative care experienced by pediatric health care providers caring for seriously ill children.

METHODS

This study explored pediatric provider perceptions of end-of-life care in an academic children's hospital, with the goal of describing perceived barriers to end-of-life care for children and their families. The report focuses on the responses of nurses (n = 117) and physicians (n = 81).

RESULTS

Approximately one half of the respondents reported 4 of 26 barriers listed in the study questionnaire as frequently or almost always occurring, that is, uncertain prognosis (55%), family not ready to acknowledge incurable condition (51%), language barriers (47%), and time constraints (47%). Approximately one third of respondents cited another 8 barriers frequently arising from problems with communication and from insufficient education in pain and palliative care. Fourteen barriers were perceived by >75% of staff members as occasionally or never interfering with pediatric end-of-life care. Comparisons between physicians and nurses and between ICU and non-ICU staff members revealed several significant differences between these groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Perceived barriers to pediatric end-of-life care differed from those impeding adult end-of-life care. The most-commonly perceived factors that interfered with optimal pediatric end-of-life care involved uncertainties in prognosis and discrepancies in treatment goals between staff members and family members, followed by barriers to communication. Improved staff education in communication skills and palliative care for children may help overcome some of these obstacles, but pediatric providers must realize that uncertainty may be unavoidable and inherent in the care of seriously ill children. An uncertain prognosis should be a signal to initiate, rather than to delay, palliative care.

Home pediatric compassionate extubation: bridging intensive and palliative care

Compassionate home extubation for pediatric patients is a topic that seldom appears in the literature and is of unknown clinical importance. However, standards in pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and among pediatric critical care physicians regarding end-of-life decisions are changing, including where and when patient extubation occurs. The authors' hospice recently consulted on an infant with spinal muscular atrophy in the PICU requiring mechanical ventilation, for whom further life-sustaining care was deemed futile. In consultation with the family, nursing staff, physicians, and the ethics committee, and following protocol guidelines, arrangements were made for this infant and his parents to be transported home. Once comfortable with his family, a small amount of lorazepam was given and the endotracheal tube removed. The infant died quietly about 20 minutes later. This case prompted the authors to review the current state of published articles covering this topic, suggest a protocol for implementing home extubation, realize imposed barriers, and discuss potential solutions. A well-developed plan for home extubation procedures may improve interactions with PICU and hospice services and at the same time provide additional choices for parents and patients wishing to maximize end-of-life quality outside the hospital setting.

Phase I research and the meaning of direct benefit

In this article, I examine whether Phase I pediatric oncology trials offer "the prospect of direct benefit," a concept found in Subpart D of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), the guidelines that provide additional protections to pediatric research subjects. In research that offers the prospect of direct benefit, children can be exposed to greater risk than in other research and their dissent can be overridden. I argue that Phase I trials do not offer the prospect of direct benefit and classifying them as if they do fails to acknowledge the moral relevance of the researchers' intent. In Subpart D, research that does not provide the prospect of direct benefit can be approved locally if it does not expose the children to more than a minor increase over minimal risk. If the risks are greater, the research must be approved nationally. To avoid the need for national review for Phase I oncology trials, I propose a new research category that incorporates the concept of "secondary direct benefit." In this category, the child's dissent would be dispositive. This new category would improve the protections provided to children by incorporating intentions into Subpart D, the absence of which is a serious flaw in our current regulatory schema.

Integrating palliative care in pediatrics

An integrated palliative care plan with goals of therapy that change throughout a child's illness will reflect an individualized, child-centered, and family-centered approach to care. This care plan will act as a foundation to assist and guide all providers, from the primary pediatrician to the subspecialty surgeon, in providing interventions that will most benefit a child and add life to the child's years.

End-of-life care for neonates and infants: the experience and effects of a palliative care consultation service

OBJECTIVE

Neonates and infants have the highest death rate in the pediatric population, yet there is a paucity of data about their end-of-life care and whether a palliative care service can have an impact on that care. The objective of this study was to describe end-of-life care for infants, including analysis of palliative care consultations conducted in this population. We hypothesized that the palliative care consultations performed had an impact on the infants' end-of-life care.

DESIGN

A retrospective chart review using the "End of Life Chart Review" from the Center to Improve Care for the Dying was conducted. The participants were the patients at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin who died at <1 year of age during the 4-year period between January 1, 1994, and December 31, 1997. The patients' place of death, medical interventions performed, and emotionally supportive services provided to families were analyzed.

RESULTS

Among the 196 deaths during the study period, 25 (13%) of these infants and families had palliative care consultations. The rate of consultations increased from 5% of the infant deaths in 1994 to 38% of the infant deaths in 1997. Infants of families that received consultations had fewer days in intensive care units, blood draws, central lines, feeding tubes, vasopressor and paralytic drug use, mechanical ventilation, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and x-rays, and the families had more frequent referrals for chaplains and social services than families that did not have palliative care consultations.

CONCLUSIONS

This study describes the end-of-life care that infants and their families received. Fewer medical procedures were performed, and more supportive services were provided to infants and families that had a palliative care consultation. This suggests that palliative care consultation may enhance end-of-life care for newborns.

Experience with neonatal palliative care consultation at the Medical College of Wisconsin-Children's Hospital of Wisconsin

At Children's Hospital of Wisconsin there is a pediatric palliative care consultation service that serves a diverse patient population, including infants. However, the value of a palliative care consultation for infants has not been well evaluated. We performed a retrospective, case series, descriptive chart review of infants in our neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) who received palliative care consults between January 1996 and June 1998. We specifically looked at their diagnoses, the timing of consults, reasons that consultations were ordered, what recommendations were made, and the subsequent outcomes. During the series period there were 898 admissions to the NICU, 51 neonatal deaths, and 12 neonatal palliative care consultations. The diagnostic categories for those with a palliative care referral included prematurity, lethal anomalies, and catastrophic or overwhelming illness. Reasons for the consultations were organization of home hospice, facilitation of medical options, such as do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders and treatment withdrawal, facilitation of comfort measures, and grief/loss issues. Recommendations that the palliative care staff made fell into four categories: advance directive planning, the optimal environment for supporting neonatal death, comfort and medical care, and psychosocial support. This series is a description of what a palliative care service can offer for terminally ill infants in an NICU. We speculate that such consults can more consistently and comprehensively provide appropriate end-of-life care for these patients and their families.

Pediatric palliative care

This article presents a model of integrated palliative care for children with life-limiting illnesses, with emphasis on collaboration of care over time among family, primary care providers, and several other groups of providers. Some of the unique aspects of caring for children related to normal developmental changes and the family unit are considered. Issues related to pain and to specific diseases are also reviewed.

Physicians' neonatal resuscitation of extremely low-birth-weight preterm infants

PURPOSE

To examine the perceptions of physicians who make delivery room decisions to resuscitate extremely low-birth-weight (ELBW) neonates at marginal viability. Nurses, parents, economists, and ethicists have questioned resuscitation of ELBW neonates, many of whom experience high levels of morbidity and mortality. Yet no systematic studies were found that addressed physicians' perceptions and delivery room decisions.

DESIGN

Descriptive, using naturalistic inquiry. A national U.S. convenience sample was obtained in 1996-1997 of 54 physicians in five perinatal subspecialties who resuscitated ELBW neonates.

METHODS

Tape-recorded and transcribed interviews were analyzed using NUD*IST software and line-by-line constant comparison.

FINDINGS

Despite awareness of the high morbidity and mortality, 96 percent of the physicians offered resuscitation to all ELBW neonates in the delivery room. The main factors affecting their decisions were "the role of the physician;" having been "trained to save lives;" the belief that "if called, I resuscitate;" the inability to determine gestational age; requests from parents to "do everything;" and the need to move from a "chaotic" delivery room to a controlled neonatal intensive care unit. Six major themes were: role expectation, uncertainty, awareness, internal and external forces, burden, and continuing quandaries. Physicians were burdened by the devastated and dying babies, by their inability to predict which neonates had a chance for intact survival, and by conflicts with colleagues about viability. Statistical probability of survival, legal constraints, and cost of care did not appear to affect greatly their decisions. Physicians asked that society and national policy makers set parameters for resuscitation.

CONCLUSIONS

The American Academy of Pediatrics' Neonatal Resuscitation Protocol needs revision to delineate the ethical criteria for resuscitation. Early prenatal education for families which clearly teaches the margins of viability and outcomes of early deliveries is also recommended. Physicians must be supported in changing the resuscitation paradigm.

Medical education about end-of-life care in the pediatric setting: principles, challenges, and opportunities

OBJECTIVE

To identify the opportunities for and barriers to medical education about end-of-life (EOL) care in the pediatric setting.

METHODS

A working group of pediatric specialists and ethicists was convened at the National Consensus Conference on Medical Education for Care Near the End-of-Life sponsored by the Open Society Institute's Project Death in America and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The charge to the working group was to consider the unique aspects of death in childhood, identify critical educational issues and effective instructional strategies, and recommend institutional changes needed to facilitate teaching about EOL care for children.

CONCLUSIONS

Although providing EOL care can be challenging, the cognitive and psychologic skills needed can be taught effectively through well-planned and focused learning experiences. The ultimate goals of such instruction are to provide more humane care to very sick children, enhance bereavement outcomes for their survivors, and develop more confident clinicians. Six specific principles regarding EOL care in the pediatric setting emerged as essential curricular elements that should be taught to all medical care providers to ensure competent patient-centered care. 1) Cognitively and developmentally appropriate communication is most effective. 2) Sharing information with patients helps avoid feelings of isolation and abandonment. 3) The needs of the patient are served when the ethical principles of self-determination and best interests are central to the decision-making process. 4) Minimization of physical and emotional pain and other symptoms requires prompt recognition, careful assessment, and comprehensive treatment. 5) Developing partnerships with families supports them in their caregiving efforts. 6) The personal and professional challenges faced by providers of EOL care deserve to be addressed. These principles actually transcend patient age and can be used to inform medical education about the care of any terminally ill patient. Similarly, these principles of effective communication, ethical decision-making, and attention to the quality of life of patients, families, and providers apply to the care of all children regardless of diagnosis and prognosis. With this in mind, teaching about EOL care does not require a new and separate curriculum, but rather taking better advantage of the many teachable moments provided by caring for a dying patient.

Physicians' neonatal resuscitation of extremely low-birth-weight preterm infants

PURPOSE

To examine the perceptions of physicians who make delivery room decisions to resuscitate extremely low-birth-weight (ELBW) neonates at marginal viability. Nurses, parents, economists, and ethicists have questioned resuscitation of ELBW neonates, many of whom experience high levels of morbidity and mortality. Yet no systematic studies were found that addressed physicians' perceptions and delivery room decisions.

DESIGN

Descriptive, using naturalistic inquiry. A national U.S. convenience sample was obtained in 1996-1997 of 54 physicians in five perinatal subspecialties who resuscitated ELBW neonates.

METHODS

Tape-recorded and transcribed interviews were analyzed using NUD*IST software and line-by-line constant comparison.

FINDINGS

Despite awareness of the high morbidity and mortality, 96% of the physicians offered resuscitation to all ELBW neonates in the delivery room. The main factors affecting their decisions were "the role of physician;" having been "trained to save lives;" the belief that "if called, I resuscitate;" the inability to determine gestational age; requests from parents to "do everything;" and the need to move from a "chaotic" delivery room to a controlled neonatal intensive care unit. Six major themes were: role expectation, uncertainty, awareness, internal and external forces, burden, and continuing quandaries. Physicians were burdened by the devastated and dying babies, by their inability to predict which neonates had a chance for intact survival, and by conflicts with colleagues about viability. Statistical probability of survival, legal constraints, and cost of care did not appear to affect greatly their decisions. Physicians asked that society and national policy makers set parameters for resuscitation.

CONCLUSIONS

The American Academy of Pediatrics' Neonatal Resuscitation Protocol needs revision to delineate the ethical criteria for resuscitation. Early prenatal education for families which clearly teaches the margins of viability and outcomes of early deliveries is also recommended. Physicians must be supported in changing the recessitation paradigm.