Palliative care for dialysis-dependent pediatric patients: A survey of providers, nurses, and caregivers

Palliative care for dialysis-dependent pediatric patients: A survey of providers, nurses, and caregivers
Kidney360; Joshua Lipsitz, Mark Stockton Beveridge, Katherine Maddox; 8/24
Dialysis-dependent pediatric patients and their families face significant biopsychosocial burdens and low health-related quality of life. Palliative care consultations can alleviate some degree of suffering for patients and families but remain underutilized within pediatric nephrology. 90% of providers and all nurses desired more palliative care education. Of the 22% of caregivers whose child had already received palliative care services, all found the consultation to be helpful. These data support further palliative care education for pediatric nephrology providers and nurses and more robust and systematic involvement of subspecialty palliative care for dialysis-dependent pediatric patients.