Effect of Palliative Care Plan on the Common Problems for Children Undergoing Hemodialysis

Background : Early integration of Pediatric Palliative Care (PPC) for children with life-threatening conditions and their families enhances the provision of holistic care, addressing psychological, social, spiritual, and physical concerns, without precluding treatment with the goal of cure. Aim: this study  aims to measure the effect of palliative care plan on the common problems for children undergoing hemodialysis. Design: A quasi-experimental design was used in this study. Setting: This study was conducted at the hemodialysis unit of Pediatric University Hospital in Mansoura. Subjects: The study was carried out on 35 children whose age ranged from 8-18 years. Structured interview questionnaire, dialysis symptom index, and palliative care plan were used to collect the required data. Results: Revealed that, 71.5% of the studied children had tendencies to suffer from common dialysis symptoms as reported in pre intervention phase and the score was declined at post test and follow up intervention. Statistically significant relations were found in between age and muscle cramps and between gender and sad in post intervention (p>0.05). Highly statistically significant difference were found between nausea, vomiting, decrease appetite, headache, muscle cramps, anxious, decreased interest in play, funny aroused throughout the study phases(p>0.05). Conclusion: there was an improvement in studied children common dialysis symptoms after the implementation of the palliative care plan. Recommendations: dialysis units should institute palliative care programs that include pain and symptom management, advance care planning, and psychosocial and spiritual support for patients and families.