Grant: Project Grant - Priority Announcement: Pediatric Cancer Research

Children with cancer and their families can experience a range of side effects from their treatments including pain and psychological distress. Palliative care for children with cancer focuses on relieving the suffering that occurs during treatment and at end of life. The aim of palliative care is to improve the quality of life for the patient and their family during their cancer treatment, regardless of the disease outcome. While many research studies have shown that providing palliative care early in the child's treatment is the most effective way to manage and prevent this suffering, these services are not accessed very often, or are accessed too late for full benefit. The purpose of this study is to try to understand why this is the case in Canada and to create a set of policy recommendations aimed at improving access to pediatric palliative care for all Canadian children who need it. We plan to interview pediatric oncology healthcare professionals (i.e., doctors, nurses, psychologists who treat cancer in children) and specialized pediatric palliative care healthcare professionals including doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers on their perspectives about the barriers and facilitators to accessing pediatric palliative care early in the child's disease. We will also interview a diverse group of teen cancer patients and caregivers of children with cancer to understand their points of view on the accessibility of pediatric palliative care early in their cancer trajectory when being treated for cancer. The interviews will be analyzed for recurring themes and patterns that arise across the interviews. The research findings will be used to develop a set of policy recommendations that will help the Canadian government understand how to improve access to pediatric palliative care across the country and will also be made available in publications (academic journals, newspapers, etc.).