OBJECTIVE:

The purpose of this review of published literature was to identify the number and focus of empirically based papers that included research methods used to directly solicit patient-reported outcomes (PRO) from pediatric oncology patients at end of life.

METHODS:

Key terms including "pediatric or child and oncology or cancer and end of life or palliative or hospice or dying" were used with five data bases (PubMed, Ovid, Cochrane, PsycInfo & PsycArticles, and CINAHL) for English language literature published between January, 2001 and June, 2006. All retrieved documents were independently reviewed by a panel of six (nurses, physicians, and one psychologist) with backgrounds in pediatric oncology.

RESULTS:

Thirty-five publications were identified but nine (25.7%) were eliminated from the analysis as they did not meet inclusion criteria. Of the remaining 26, four (15.4%) included patient-reported outcomes, six (23.1%) included parent only-reported outcomes, and five (19.2%) included staff only-reported outcomes. Nine (34.6%) were retrospective medical record reviews. Two (7.7%) included parent and record review data or parent and physician reports.

CONCLUSIONS:

Empirically-based end-of-life publications in pediatric oncology are relatively few in number and nearly 85% of completed studies do not include PRO.