Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers report in the March issue of
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine that a survey of parents who had a child die of cancer found that one in eight considered hastening their child''s death, a deliberation influenced by the amount of pain the child experienced during the last month of life.
The study, the first to explore this sensitive area, suggests that many parents worry that their children will suffer from uncontrollable pain, and that some parents might consider that an early death would be preferable. The researchers say the findings underscore the importance of managing patients'' pain, and of communicating with parents about the tools available for easing progressive pain.
"The problem is that conversations about these family worries may not always happen," said senior author Joanne Wolfe, MD, MPH, Division Chief of Pediatric Palliative Care at Dana-Farber and Director of Palliative Care at Children''s Hospital Boston. "Parents may not have the opportunity to express these feelings and considerations, and as clinicians, we may not be adequately enabling sufficient opportunity for them to talk about their concerns."
Wolfe, along with first author Veronica Dussel, MD, MPH, a Dana-Farber research fellow, undertook the research to gain an understanding of why some parents would consider a measure as extreme as intentionally ending a child''s life.
The researchers interviewed 141 parents of children who had died of cancer and were treated at Dana-Farber, Children''s Hospital, or Children''s Hospitals and Clinics of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minn.