Research Article
A Qualitative Approach to Understanding Quality of Life in Pediatric Palliative Care
Elana E Evan*, Elise Calonico BS, Jolene Tan BS and Lonnie K Zeltzer
Department of Pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, UCLA Children’s Comfort Care Program, USA
- *Corresponding Author:
- Elana E Evan
Department of Pediatrics
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
UCLA Children’s Comfort Care Program, USA
Tel: 310-206-1771
Fax: 310-794-2104
E-mail: eevan@mednet.ucla.edu
Received date: June 22, 2012; Accepted date: August 21, 2012; Published date: August 23, 2012
Citation: Evan EE, Calonico BSE, Tan BSJ, Zeltzer LK (2012) A Qualitative Approach to Understanding Quality of Life in Pediatric Palliative Care. J Palliative Care Med S1:005. doi: 10.4172/2165-7386.S1-005
Copyright: © 2012 Evan EE, et al. 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.
Abstract
Helping pediatric patients achieve an optimal quality of life despite their serious illness is a hallmark for providing excellent pediatric palliative care. There is controversy regarding how to define pediatric Quality of Life (QoL) and how to assess this construct in children. Currently, there is no pediatric QoL instrumentation that has been standardized on population children with advanced disease. This qualitative study sought to determine what is quality of life from the perspective of pediatric patients with advanced disease? Twenty-nine pediatric patients (child mean age 14.7 years, range 9-21 years) participated in the current study. Through analysis, we identified three domains of QoL (physical, psychological, social) and a lifestyle values category. These results are important first steps for providing direction to future studies aimed at modifying QoL instruments in order to better understand the pediatric patient’s illness experience and improve QoL when they are facing advanced disease.
