Research Themes

Based on:

CIHR and the Canadian Agenda for Research in Palliative Care (NRAC/CPCA 1999) and members’ research or clinical areas of study or interest.

To generate outcome measures such as a QOL tool to guide care with this population (grant submitted)
To understand the experiences of children, adolescents, siblings, friends and parents of children throughout the illness trajectory (in progress)
Intervention trials to improve bereavement outcome care (potential for future)
Effectiveness of expressive art therapies on pain and symptom management (potential future)
Understanding the experience of fathers (potential future)
Understanding the experience of the non-dominant culture (potential future)
To study unique aspects of children’s pain/symptoms at end of life (in progress)
To study the experiences of pain and symptoms in the child(s) voice (future)
To study the parental experiences of forgoing artificially delivered nutrition and hydration (in progress)
To further understand the long term experiences of siblings

Evaluation of the uptake of knowledge into the palliative care model (in progress)
Evaluation of a community/hospital based model of pediatric palliative care (in progress)
Evaluation of quality care
To conduct a needs assessment of the financial implications or service provision (potential future)
To study team effectiveness and impact on health outcomes (potential future)

To understand and inform hospital/agency research policies and procedures with respect to benefits/harms of research within this population (potential future)
Develop a hospital wide pediatric palliative care research data base that tracks and monitors research recruitment and participation of families (near future)
Determine need for regional, provincial and/or national research patient data bases to gather epidemiological data to further identify at risk children and to advocate for service/policy changes (potential future)
To study the knowledge, attitudes and experiences of health care professionals comfort and utilization of advanced care planning with children with life limiting illnesses. (in progress)
To study the knowledge, attitudes and practices of health care providers communication about death and dying with children and preparation for death with parents (future)
To study the experiences and coping of pediatric palliative care health care providers (in progress)
To study the economic and psychosocial burden of caring for a child with a life limiting illness and grief on families, workplaces and communities (future)
To develop a population based database to study multiple outcomes and variables (future)