ArticleBMC palliative care2018
How do professionals assess the quality of life of children with advanced cancer receiving palliative care, and what are their recommendations for improvement?
Article in BMC palliative care, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Specialist paediatric palliative care for children and young people with cancer: A mixed-methods systematic review.Palliative medicine · 2020Pooled it
- Associations of Age, Gender, and Family Income with Quality of Life in Children With Advanced Cancer.Journal of pediatric oncology nursing : official journal of the Association of Pediatric Oncology NursesTrial
- Sarcoma Assessment Measure-Paediatric Version (SAM-Paeds): development of a disease-specific patient reported outcome measure for children with sarcoma.Journal of patient-reported outcomes · 2025Article
- PACOPED QL: Development and evaluation of the quality-of-life scale for children with life-threatening illnesses.Palliative & supportive care · 2025Article
- Quality-of-Life Assessment in Pediatric Advanced Cancer: Development of the Patient-Reported Outcome MeasureCurrent oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2024Article
- Article
- Quality of life in childhood advanced cancer: from conceptualization to assessment with the Advance QoL tool.BMC palliative care · 2022Article
- How Do you Focus on Quality of Life When Kids Cannot Go to School or Outside?Current pediatrics reports · 2021Review
- Psychosocial difficulties identified by health care providers as they predict pain-related quality of life in children with cancer.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2020Article
- What do you need to learn in paediatric psycho-oncology?Ecancermedicalscience · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIt is known that information regarding the quality of life of a patient is central to pediatric palliative care. This information allows professionals to adapt the care and support provided to children and their families. Previous studies have documented the major areas to be investigated in order to assess the quality of life, although it is not yet known what operational criteria or piece of information should be used in the context of pediatric palliative care. The present study aims to: 1) Identify signs of quality of life and evaluation methods currently used by professionals to assess the quality of life of children with cancer receiving palliative care. 2) Collect recommendations from professionals to improve the evaluation of quality of life in this context.
methodsWe selected a qualitative research design and applied an inductive thematic content analysis to the verbal material. Participants included 20 members of the Department of Hematology-Oncology at CHU Sainte-Justine from various professions (e.g. physicians, nurses, psychosocial staff) who had cared for at least one child with cancer receiving palliative care in the last year.
resultsProfessionals did not have access to pre-established criteria or to a defined procedure to assess the quality of life of children they followed in the context of PPC. They reported basing their assessment on the child's non-verbal cues, relational availability and elements of his/her environment. These cues are typically collected through observation, interpretation and by asking the child, his/her parents, and other members of the care. To improve the assessment of quality of life professionals recommended optimizing interdisciplinary communication, involving the child and the family in the evaluation process, increasing training to palliative care in hematology/oncology, and developing formalized measurement tools.
conclusionThe formulation of explicit criteria to assess the quality of life in this context, along with detailed recommendations provided by professionals, support the development of systematic measurement strategy. Such a strategy would contribute to the development of common care goals and further facilitate communication between professionals and with the family.
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