Standards of Psychosocial Care for Parents of Children With Cancer.

Parents and caregivers of children with cancer are both resilient and deeply affected by the child's cancer. A systematic review of published research since 1995 identified 138 studies of moderate quality indicating that parent distress increases around diagnosis, then returns to normal levels. Post-traumatic symptoms are common. Distress may be impairing for vulnerable parents and may impact a child's coping and adjustment. Moderate quality evidence and expert consensus informed a strong recommendation for parents and caregivers to receive early and ongoing assessment of their mental health needs with access to appropriate interventions facilitated to optimize parent, child, and family well being.

Peritransplant psychiatric evaluation of patients with fanconi anemia.

Patients with Fanconi anemia (FA) referred for stem cell transplantation (SCT) have multiple psychosocial risk factors and often present in distress in the peritransplant period. Twenty-two patients with FA were referred for psychiatry consultation before, during, or after SCT, across a 13-year period at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The most common diagnoses were mood (50%), adjustment (46%), and anxiety (23%) disorders and delirium (23%); the most common psychiatric symptoms were anxious/depressed (86%), withdrawn (64%), and aggressive (59%) symptoms. Etiology of the diagnoses and symptoms included: chronic childhood illness, physical and/or neurodevelopmental disability, presence of a genetic syndrome, presence of a cancer predisposition syndrome, exposure to therapeutic androgens, and exposure to pediatric SCT. However, the degree of influence of the different factors could not be determined. In addition, other factors such as impact of sibling illness or loss, extent of treatment nonadherence, level and significance of neurodevelopmental pathologies were identified. Future prospective and possibly multicenter studies will need to be generated for a better understanding and more complete factor analysis.

A Clinical Pathway to Standardize Care of Children With Delirium in Pediatric Inpatient Settings.

Pediatric delirium is an important comorbidity of medical illness in inpatient pediatric care that has lacked a consistent approach for detection and management. A clinical pathway (CP) was developed to address this need. Pediatric delirium contributes significantly to morbidity, mortality, and costs of inpatient care of medically ill children and adolescents. Screening for delirium in hospital settings with validated tools is feasible and effective in reducing delirium and improving outcomes; however, multidisciplinary coordination is required for implementation. The workgroup, composed of international experts in child and adolescent consultation psychiatry, reviewed the literature and developed a flowchart for feasible screening and management of pediatric delirium. When evidence was lacking, expert consensus was reached; stakeholder feedback was included to create the final pathway. A CP expert collaborated with the workgroup. Two sequential CPs were created: (1) "Prevention and Identification of Pediatric Delirium" emphasizes the need for systematic preventive measures and screening, and (2) "Diagnosis and Management of Pediatric Delirium" recommends an urgent and ongoing search for the underlying causes to reverse the syndrome while providing symptomatic management focused on comfort and safety. Detailed accompanying documents explain the supporting literature and the rationale for recommendations and provide resources such as screening tools and implementation guides. Additionally, the role of the child and adolescent consultation-liaison psychiatrist as a resource for collaborative care of patients with delirium is discussed.

Understanding death with limited experience in life: dying children's and adolescents' understanding of their own terminal illness and death.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: An up-to-date summary of the literature on children's and adolescents' understanding of their own terminal illness and death. RECENT FINDINGS: Clinicians still find it difficult to speak with pediatric patients about death even though guidelines for facilitating communication on the topic exist. As a result, pediatric patients are less likely to develop a clear understanding of their illness and there is a disconnect between clinicians and parents about prognosis, even when clinicians have concluded there is no longer possibility for cure. Insufficient communication and poor understanding may increase the risk of patients feeling isolated, mistrustful and anxious, and deprive them of a role model who can communicate about painful issues or share difficult feelings. Despite these complexities, young people often show remarkable resiliency in the face of death and want to get the most out of the remaining time they have. SUMMARY: In addition to these most recent findings, this review examines the challenges in researching this topic, obstacles to patients receiving information about prognosis, and how physical symptoms affect patients' ability to develop an understanding. It also reviews sources of insight into pediatric patients' understanding including the development of concepts of death, fears about their own death, legal interpretations of what patients understand, and how terminally ill young people continue to treasure life. It concludes by addressing ways clinicians can use the knowledge we have to communicate well with dying children and adolescents and their families.