SynthesisBMC palliative care2025
Ethics and end-of-life in pediatric and neonatal ICUs: a systematic review of recommendations.
Synthesis in BMC palliative care, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Review
- Palineo score: development of a score to identify the palliative care needs of neonatal patients admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit.Critical care science · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWorking in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) or pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) entails making difficult decisions about children at the end of their lives that raise significant ethical issues. This review identified the ethical content of the papers containing expert guidelines and recommendations in relation to end-of-life decision-making in NICUs and PICUs, by analyzing ethical positions and ethical principles behind them.
methodsSystematic search was limited to the period from 1990 to 2023 and encompassed 6 bibliographic databases (Medline, PubMed, CINAHL, APA PsycINFO, Web of Science Core Collection, and Scopus), grey literature sources and relevant reference lists. The international, national, or institutional papers providing expert guidelines and recommendations comprehensively addressing either withholding/withdrawing of life sustaining treatment, palliative care, and/or intentional life terminating actions in NICUs and PICUs were included in analysis. Also, only papers published in English language were considered. Papers that were not developed by intensive care expert communities and those that were either too narrow (e.g., dealing with specific issues or specific patient groups) or broad (e.g., addressing issues of interest on general and abstract level) were excluded. The search data were gathered and deduplicated, partly by Mendeley software. Titles and abstracts were screened by three independent reviewers, and full-text papers further reviewed and assessed for eligibility. Subsequently, data of interest were extracted, and qualitative analysis was performed.
resultsInitial search retrieved 6784 papers from bibliographic databases and 363 from other utilized sources. Titles and abstracts from 2827 papers were screened. 17 full texts were further assessed resulting in a total number of 9 papers (6 from bibliographic databases and 3 from other sources) which met the inclusion criteria and were included for analysis. The papers were published from 2001 to 2021. Four papers primarily focus on NICU setting, while five on PICU. A total of 38 ethical positions were identified and were grouped under 5 themes according to the content of the positions, relating to: patients, parents, medical team, decision-making and treatment options. A total of 12 ethical principles were mentioned in the papers. The principle of beneficence emerged as the most prominent one. It was explicitly mentioned in all included papers except one.
conclusionsThis review has shown that papers containing guidelines and recommendations on end-of-life decision-making in the NICU and PICU promote similar stances. The ethical principle of beneficence is at the core of the decision-making process, and all decisions are made focusing on the child's best interests.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.