Face and content validity, acceptability, feasibility, and implementability of a novel outcome measure for children with life-limiting or life-threatening illness in three sub-Saharan African countries.

Background: The Children's Palliative Care Outcome Scale (C-POS) is the first measure developed for children with life-limiting and -threatening illness. It is essential to determine whether the measure addresses what matters to children, and if they can comprehend and respond to its items.

Aim: To determine the face and content validity, comprehensiveness, comprehensibility, acceptability and feasibility, and implementability of the C-POS.

Towards person-centred quality care for children with life-limiting and life-threatening illness: Self-reported symptoms, concerns and priority outcomes from a multi-country qualitative study.

Background: Paediatric life-limiting and life-threatening conditions (life-limiting conditions) place significant strain on children, families and health systems. Given high service use among this population, it is essential that care addresses their main symptoms and concerns.

Aim: This study aimed to identify the symptoms, concerns and other outcomes that matter to children with life-limiting conditions and their families in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ensuring and Restoring Balance on Access to Controlled Substances for Medical and Scientific Purposes: Joint Statement from Palliative Care Organizations.

The central principle of "balance" represents the dual obligation of governments to establish a system of control that ensures the adequate availability of controlled substances for medical and scientific purposes while simultaneously preventing their nonmedical use, diversion, and trafficking, two primary goals of the international control system. On the one hand, although strong opioids, including morphine, are absolutely necessary for the relief of severe pain, legitimate access to opioids for pain treatment and palliative care is lacking in the majority of the world's countries. On the other hand, in a few high-income countries with higher consumption of prescription opioids, diversion and nonmedical use are increasingly prevalent.

Interventions geared towards strengthening the health system of Namibia through the integration of palliative care.

The high burden of non-communicable diseases and communicable diseases in Africa characterised by late presentation and diagnosis makes the need for palliative care a priority from the point of diagnosis to death and through bereavement. Palliative care is an intervention that requires a multidisciplinary team to address the multifaceted needs of the patient and family. Thus, its development takes a broad approach that involves engaging all key stakeholders ranging from policy makers, care providers, educators, the public, patients, and families.

Best practices in developing a national palliative care policy in resource limited settings: lessons from five African countries.

Given the high unmet need for palliative care in Africa and other resource limited settings, it is important that countries embrace the public health approach to increasing access through its integration within existing healthcare systems. To give this approach a strong foundation that would ensure sustainability, the World Health Organisation urges member states to ensure that policy environments are suitable for this intervention. The development, strengthening, and implementation of national palliative care policies is a priority.

Strengthening pharmaceutical systems for palliative care services in resource limited settings: piloting a mHealth application across a rural and urban setting in Uganda.

Background: Medicine availability is improving in sub-Saharan Africa for palliative care services. There is a need to develop strong and sustainable pharmaceutical systems to enhance the proper management of palliative care medicines, some of which are controlled. One approach to addressing these needs is the use of mobile technology to support data capture, storage and retrieval.