Articles: palliative-care.
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Palliative medicine · May 2021
Hearing the voices of children diagnosed with a life-threatening or life-limiting illness and their parents' accounts in a palliative care setting: A qualitative study.
Exploring children's experiences of a life-threatening or life-limiting diagnosis is essential in offering appropriate care for them. There have been few studies examining these and they are often from the parent's perspective. Even if adults are frequently unwilling to share information with children, they become aware of their diagnosis and prognosis. The theory of awareness contexts provided a theoretical framework through which it can be understood what children knew about their condition. ⋯ Children in the study often know more about their condition than their parents realised. Using this understanding, healthcare professionals can advise parents and children about how to communicate with one another which would enable the children to give voice to their thoughts, emotions and experiences.
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The Spanish Euthanasia Law introduces a new right that is added to the portfolio of services provided by the Spanish health system and whose application is guaranteed within a period of 40 days. From the perspective of clinical experience, it is argued that without the effective right to quality palliative care and given the current shortcomings in dependant care, this law may send a threatening message to particularly fragile and dependant individuals that will lead to them feeling like a burden to their families and society. ⋯ There are issues that require clarification with regard to the application of euthanasia within the context of general practice. The conclusion is that this new law will pose more problems of the type it aims to resolve.