SynthesisBMJ paediatrics open2025
Economic costs of health and social care for a child with a life-limiting condition in their last year of life: a systematic review.
Synthesis in BMJ paediatrics open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimTo systematically review and descriptively synthesise the costs associated with any health and/or social care services provided to children with a life-limiting condition, in their last year of life.
methodsSystematic review using MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL Cochrane Library, CINAHL and other specialist databases to identify articles published between 2004 and 2024. Duplicates were removed and two authors screened the articles and abstracts independently. Full-text articles were assessed for eligibility, with quality assessment conducted using the Drummond checklist. The findings were exported into tables and summarised narratively. Costs from each study were calculated per person per month and inflated to 2024 US dollars.
results20 records were eligible for final inclusion. Services reported were varied as were approaches to estimating costs. In general, younger children required more intensive and higher cost care. Costs increase in the final months of life, and specialist paediatric palliative care interventions were associated with overall lower costs through reductions in hospital admissions and length of stay.
conclusionsIt was not possible to present a reliable robust estimate of the economic costs of services and resources due to limited and heterogenic data. Further research is needed to identify the full range of resources, and services associated with caring for children with life-limiting conditions in their last year of life, to support healthcare planning and resource allocation.
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.