Trends in Pediatric Palliative Care Research (TPPCR) 2025; Issue #2

Trends in Pediatric Palliative Care Research (TPPCR) 2025; Issue #2 
Siden Research Team; Commentary by Kim Mooney-Doyle, MD; 3/6/25
Kim Mooney-Doyle – University of Maryland School of Nursing, MD, USA: I am a nurse scientist dedicated to advancing family health in serious pediatric illness. I have studied parent-sibling relationships and the social ecological factors that impact it for the past decade. ... Siblings are special and, too often, invisible in the care of seriously ill children, adolescents, and young adults. Two articles in this month’s collection bring the needs and experiences of siblings into focus using a family lens. A key take-away from this important work is that while siblings want to communicate with their parents about their brother’s or sister’s illness, it can be hard to initiate such conversations. As clinicians and researchers, we can work with families to devise strategies that foster these conversations, such as providing prompts or a scripted conversation guide to help a parent engage the sibling.