Establishing psychosocial palliative care standards for children and adolescents with cancer and their families: An integrative review

Background:Despite standardization in disease assessments and curative interventions for childhood cancer, palliative assessments and psychosocial interventions remain diverse and disparate.Aim:Identify current approaches to palliative care in the pediatric oncology setting to inform development of comprehensive psychosocial palliative care standards for pediatric and adolescent patients with cancer and their families. Analyze barriers to implementation and enabling factors.Design:Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines framed the search strategy and reporting. Data analysis followed integrative review methodology.Data sources:Four databases were searched in May 2014 with date restrictions from 2000 to 2014: PubMed, Cochrane, PsycINFO, and Scopus. A total of 182 studies were included for synthesis. Types of studies included randomized and non-randomized trials with or without comparison groups, qualitative research, prior reviews, expert opinion, and consensus report....