Experiences of Pediatric Palliative Care Among Bereaved Parents Who Lost a Child With Leukemia in South Korea.

Pediatric palliative care was introduced in South Korea in 2018, with an increased need for care of children with life-limiting conditions, such as leukemia. However, the perspective of parents, who are the primary caregivers, regarding pediatric palliative care has not been explored. This study aimed to describe the pediatric palliative care-related experiences of parents who had lost a child to leukemia to better understand their needs and care outcomes. Ten mothers of children who received pediatric palliative care were recruited. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted. Phenomenology was applied to elucidate parents' experiences during their children's illness and after bereavement. From 179 main statements and 46 meaningful units, 22 themes were derived and grouped into 11 theme clusters and 4 categories. The participants described that the pediatric palliative care team had an indispensable role in providing emotional support to them and their children; this support continued even after the child's death. In addition, the participants were satisfied with their choice to receive pediatric palliative care and hoped that more regions could benefit from the services. The study findings could contribute to advances and the popularization of pediatric palliative care in South Korea.

Effectiveness of International Hospice and Palliative Care Training for Health Care Professionals in Countries of the Western Pacific Region.

As hospice and palliative care is a holistic service grounded in spirituality, training in spiritual care is essential. This study aimed to describe an international workforce training program for hospice and palliative care that emphasized spiritual care and evaluate the effectiveness of the training implementation. A quasi-experimental study was conducted with 28 health care professionals from 4 countries in the Western Pacific Region, who attended the international workforce trainings on hospice and palliative care. Data were collected before and after the trainings using a self-reported survey questionnaire. The participants' palliative care knowledge, spiritual well-being, perceived stress, and compassion competency were analyzed to evaluate the training program. Whereas the participants' knowledge of hospice and palliative care ( P < .001) and compassion competency increased ( P = .004), their perceived stress decreased post training ( P = .002). This study provided an extensive description of an international workforce training program of hospice and palliative care for potential replication of the training in other regions of the world. Because training in hospice and palliative care positively influenced health care professionals' spiritual care competency, future training and studies should consider spiritual care factors, along with intellectual aspects.