Pediatric Palliative Care: Practice Variation and Recommendations

Abstract

Background: Palliative care provides holistic supportive care for people with complex life-limiting disease including symptom relief, navigation of complex medical decisions and support for their unique psychological, social, and spiritual needs to enhance their quality of life. Children are distinct from adults in many ways including their diagnoses, disease trajectories, symptom burden, and spectrum of caregivers. As medical technologies improve, the number of children who are appropriate for pediatric palliative care (PPC) expertise is increasing. This project sought to characterize …