Child: care, health and development
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Child Care Health Dev · Jul 2009
Comparative StudyAgreement between children with cancer and their parents in reporting the child's health-related quality of life during a stay at the hospital and at home.
Although parent-child agreement is widely studied in the paediatric clinical sample, no study has compared parent-child agreement during home and hospital stays. We aimed to determine the level of agreement in reports of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) between parents of children with cancer and the children themselves during a stay in the hospital and a stay at home. ⋯ Agreement between parents and their children who have cancer in reporting the child's HRQoL differed by location of stay. For the home stay, the agreement was better for domains related to the child's physical life, but for the hospital stay, it was better for domains related to the child's behaviour/psychological life.
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Child Care Health Dev · Jul 2009
Children who have complex health needs: parents' experiences of their child's education.
An increasing number of children have complex and continuing health needs. These children have the same right to a full range of education opportunities as other children. ⋯ Inclusion in education should include pre-school provision, and more work in this area would be beneficial. Inclusion in mainstream education is only beneficial if it enables the child to participate fully with their peers. This requires practical and organizational issues to be addressed, services to be well co-ordinated, responsibilities and funding to be clear, and staff to be enabled to be confident in meeting the child's needs. However, it is also vital that individuals and organizations have a positive attitude to children and to inclusion. The additional effort and time which children may have to spend on their school work because of their health needs should also be recognized and supported appropriately.
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Child Care Health Dev · May 2009
Attitudes of Flemish secondary school students towards euthanasia and other end-of-life decisions in minors.
The aim of the study was to investigate attitudes of secondary school students towards acceptability of requests by minors for end-of-life decisions (ELDs) with a possible life-shortening effect: non-treatment decisions, potentially life-shortening alleviation of pain and symptoms (APS) and euthanasia. ⋯ Attitudes towards ELD requests varied with case and participant characteristics and type of ELD. The studied adolescents have a clear wish to be informed about terminal prognosis. Physicians and caregivers should adequately involve adolescents in decision making and tailor prognosis-related information to their needs and level of competency.
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To determine the characteristics and prevalence of previous child sexual abuse among a group of Mexican junior high school students. ⋯ In the population studied, the prevalency of child sexual abuse was greater than that reported in Mexico City (4.3-8.4%), although it was similar to that found in the Spanish child population (15-23%). The risk of sexual abuse is greater for girls and the principal aggressors are male neighbours, family friends and relatives; the abuse is committed in the home of the aggressor or the victim and very few cases are reported to the authorities.
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Child Care Health Dev · Mar 2009
Integrating children's services in England: national evaluation of children's trusts.
Poor co-ordination of services can have severe consequences for disadvantaged children with complex needs. Since 2003 national and local governments in England embarked on sweeping reforms aimed at improving and integrating local health, education and social services for children. These were to be organized locally by children's trusts and piloted by 35 children's trust pathfinders. ⋯ Children's trusts enabled major changes to services in areas where local actors and organizations were motivated and empowered. In other areas the remit of children's trusts was often too broad and vague to overcome entrenched organizational and professional divisions and interests. Policymakers need to balance facilitation of change in areas with dynamic change agents with methods for ensuring that dormant areas and agencies are not left behind.