Abstract

Background: The discovery of a fatal disease marks the beginning of the child dying trajectory. However, the lack of availability of palliative care services for children with cancer is a challenge for families in the United States.

Aim: This study is two-fold. The first is to identify the demand for palliative care services for children with cancer. The second is to determine the precise and geographical availability of palliative care services for children in the end-stage disease in the United States.

Design: This study is secondary research.

Data Sources: The research's base is data from organizations as the CDC and NHPCO. The criteria for selecting other studies has focused on research with a confirmed data source that addresses pediatric palliative care services and challenges facing by children with cancer between 1996 to 2020.

Results: In 2016, in the United States, 2118 children aged less than 19 years died from cancer and of this total, 37% died at parent's homes. It appears that the majority of these children were not supported by palliative care service, given that only 3.48% of palliative care services clearly stated that they have a pediatric program, out of a total of 2,330 listed on the NHPCO website.

Conclusion: The number of palliative care services for children should be increased in the United States. Adult's palliative care services could consider training their staff to address the needs of children and families. Governmental Agencies could encourage further research to develop more pediatric programs and services for children who are facing a terminal illness.

Keywords: Child; Neoplasms; Palliative Care; Terminal Care; Home Care Services

References

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Citation

Citation: Robert W Buckingham and Renata Ferretti. “The Urgent Need to Increase Palliative Care Services for Children with Cancer in the United States". Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 5.1 (2021): 17-22.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Robert W Buckingham and Renata Ferretti. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.