• Franca Benini, Mariadonata Bellentani, Laura Reali, Pierina Lazzarin, Lucia De Zen, Federico Pellegatta, Aprile Pierangelo Lora PL Italian Society of General Practitioner and Primary Care, Florence, Italy., and Gianlorenzo Scaccabarozzi.
• Pediatric Pain and Palliative Care Service, Department of Women's and Children's Health, University Hospital Padua, Via Ospedale 59, Padua, Italy. franca.benini@aopd.veneto.it.
• Ital J Pediatr. 2021 Jan 7; 47 (1): 4.

BackgroundPediatric palliative care (PPC) addresses the physical and psychological needs of children suffering from life-limiting diseases. To define prevention and educational plans and to properly allocate resources, a precise estimation of the PPC burden is required.ObjectivesTo estimate the current number of children requiring PPC in Italy, useful to assist policy-makers and healthcare bodies in the organization and allocation of PPC resources.MethodsLiterature data, The Global Atlas of Palliative Care at the End of Life and Italian national databases have been consulted.ResultsAccording to our estimation, at present, a total of 20,540-32,864 children in Italy require PPC (34-54 children/100,000 inhabitants) of whom 18 children/100,000 inhabitants require specialized PPC.ConclusionsThe present work is a fundamental tool to be used by the institutions, the local networks of PPC and the health programmers when formulating organizational models and care plans consistent with the actual need for PPC.

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