Comfort and Confidence Levels of Health Care Professionals Providing Pediatric Palliative Care in the Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

Most childhood deaths that occur in the hospital happen in the pediatric intensive care unit. Providing pediatric palliative care in the intensive care unit comes with unique challenges due to the acute care, curative and often medically aggressive focus of these settings. In this study, 190 PICU health care professionals reported on their comfort and confidence in providing palliative care. Findings indicate that professionals report only a moderate level of comfort and confidence in this type of care in the pediatric ICU. For physicians and nurses, comfort and confidence was significantly higher for those who had practiced 8 years or more. Practitioners reported less comfort in providing psychosocial care. Implications for the social work role on the interdisciplinary team and suggestions for future research are discussed.