Palliative care for adolescents and young adults with advanced illness: A scoping review

Age-related complex medical conditions have been commonly reported among adolescents and young adults with advanced life-limiting illness. There is increasing interest in exploring their palliative care needs and end-of-life experiences.

This scoping review aimed to explore the available literature about providing palliative and end-of-life care to adolescents and young adults with advanced life-limiting illnesses.

Scoping review. This review was registered on Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SPTD7).

Electronic databases (MEDLINEALL, Embase, Emcare, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trial CENTRAL, Scopus, PsycINFO, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews), Google Scholar and reference lists were searched up to October 2021. We included studies reporting on adolescents and/or young adults with advanced life-limiting illnesses. There were no limitations concerning location, type of illness or study design.

We identified 51 studies published between 2002 and 2021. Most studies were published in the United States (n = 34, 67%), and nine studies (18%) reported exclusively on patients with non-malignant illnesses. Two thirds of the identified studies were case reports and retrospective chart reviews (n = 33). Three main topics were identified: Physical symptom burden (n = 26, 51%), Psychological and social needs (n = 33, 65%), and end-of-life care (n = 30, 59%). Twenty-six studies (51%) were focused only on one topic, and the age range used to identify adolescents and young adults varied based on the study location.

The findings of this review shed light on the different palliative care experiences and knowledge gaps related to adolescents and young adults as an underserved and vulnerable patient population. Further research needs to be dedicated toward palliative care programs tailored for adolescents and young adults.