Pediatric and Adult Cardiologists' and Respirologists' Referral Practices to Palliative Care.

CONTEXT

Children and adults with advanced cardiac or respiratory disease may benefit from specialized palliative care (SPC), but there has been little SPC research in this area.

OBJECTIVES

To explore pediatric cardiologists' and respirologists' (pediatric clinicians) beliefs about and referral practices to SPC and compare these results to adult cardiologists and respirologists (adult clinicians).

METHODS

Pediatric and adult clinicians were sent a survey exploring SPC referral practices and beliefs. Responses were summarized with descriptive statistics. Pediatric and adult clinicians' responses were compared using Pearson's chi-square test.

RESULTS

The response rate was 56% (989/1759); 9% (87/989) were pediatric clinicians. Pediatric clinicians were more likely than adult clinicians to be female, work in an academic center, and experience fewer patient deaths (P<0.001). Pediatric clinicians reported better access to SPC clinical nurse specialists, spiritual care specialists and bereavement counselors (P<0.001), while adult clinicians reported better access to palliative care units (P<0.001). Pediatric clinicians referred to SPC earlier, while adult clinicians tended to refer after disease directed therapies were stopped (P<0.001). More than half of all clinicians felt patients had negative perceptions of the phrase "palliative care". Although most clinicians were satisfied with SPC quality (73-82%), fewer adult clinicians were satisfied with SPC availability (74 vs. 47%; P<0.001). Fewer pediatric clinicians felt that SPC prioritized oncology patients (13 vs. 53%; P<0.001).

CONCLUSION

There are important differences between pediatric and adult clinicians' beliefs about and referral practices to SPC. This may reflect unique features of pediatric diseases, provider characteristics, care philosophies, or service availability.