Parents' assessment of quality of care and grief following a child's death.

Background: Deaths among children are rare, but the effect on family members is profound. Compared with adult deaths, information about grief, recovery, and quality of care is sparse.

Objectives: To describe aspects of bereavement for parents who had experienced the death of a child and to compare these aspects by parent sex, type of death, and overall experience.

Provider perceptions of child deaths.

Background: The quality and context of end-of-life care for children are not as well studied as they are for adults. The components of quality care are less clear, and differences between providers' perception of the quality of death are also not well understood.

Objective: To compare nurse and physician perceptions of the quality of care and events of death of the same children.

The FOOTPRINTS model of pediatric palliative care.

Little is known about the optimal context in which to provide care for the more than 53,000 children who die each year in the United States. Poor training in pediatric palliative care contributes to care that is often fragmented and may neglect the physical, psychosocial, and spiritual needs of the child and family. Pediatric hospice care is frequently not available or not chosen by the family or health care providers.