• Inbal Hileli, Myriam Weyl Ben Arush, Fahed Hakim, and Sergey Postovsky.
• Department of Pediatric Oncology/Hematology, Meyer Children's Hospital, Rambam Health Care Campus, and Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
• Pediatr Blood Cancer. 2014 Feb 1;61(2):265-8.

BackgroundThe influence of socio-economic and religious background on decisions made by parents of children with incurable cancer regarding DNR orders is not fully understood.ProcedureA retrospective analysis of medical charts of patients who died between January 2000 and January 2011 was performed. The following data were sought: written evidence of DNR discussion with parents, religious background, educational level, monthly income.ResultsThere was evidence of a discussion on DNR in 73/90 charts. DNR consent was obtained in 14/17 (82.4%) cases where at least one parent had >15 years of education versus in only 24/45 (53.3%) cases where both parents had ≤15 years education as determined by univariate analysis (P = 0.03). DNR consent was also more likely to be obtained among parents of children with income >10,000 NIS (24/30, 80.0% vs. 20/38, 52.6%, P = 0.013). Parents of Jewish (22/30, 73.3%), Islamic (16/26, 61.5%), and Christian (8/9, 88.9%) background were equally likely to provide DNR consent. However, Druze families were less likely to do so (2/8, 25.0%, P = 0.036).ConclusionsThe process of decision-making to a DNR request was associated with parents' educational level and monthly family income, and not by religious background, with the exception of Druze families.© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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