Oct 23, 2020
This episode features Dr Katie Ekberg (School of
Early Childhood and Inclusive Education, Queensland University
of Technology, Australia) and Dr Anthony Herbert (School
of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education, Queensland
University of Technology, Australia).
The urgency of caring for children with complex and serious
conditions ensures that care must continue during
the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
As yet, guidelines for communication with families about the
COVID-19 pandemic are not based on direct
observational evidence of actual communication practices
within palliative care during the pandemic. The current study
provides evidence of the pervasive relevance of communication about
the COVID-19 pandemic during clinician-family paediatric
palliative care consultations.There was a pervasive relevance of
serious and non-serious talk about the pandemic.
Topics typical of standard paediatric palliative care consultations
often led to discussion of the pandemic, including medical
discussions and psychosocial and lifestyle discussions.Clinicians
(55%) and parents (45%) initiated talk about the pandemic.
Clinicians should expect and be prepared for the pervasiveness of
talk about the COVID-19 pandemic within standard paediatric
palliative care consultations, so that they can be flexible in how
they respond to families.
Future guidelines should consider the pervasive and varied ways
that conversations about a pandemic are raised within and across
routine consultations.