Cultural or Spiritual End-of-Life Practice Preference Assessment and Documentation: Identifying Current Practice in...

Area of Science:

• Palliative Care
• Pediatric Hospice
• Cultural Competence

Background:

• End-of-life rituals are crucial for peaceful death and grief processing.
• Barriers to hospice care include fear of misunderstanding or impeding cultural/spiritual rituals.
• Limited research exists on cultural/spiritual rituals within pediatric hospice settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify current practices for assessing and documenting cultural/spiritual end-of-life preferences in pediatric hospice programs.
• To evaluate the extent of documentation regarding end-of-life spiritual needs.

Main Methods:

• Surveys administered to employees of two pediatric hospice programs in a Midwestern state.
• Retrospective chart review of decedents from one pediatric hospice program over a five-year period.

Main Results:

• Routine assessment (97.3%) and documentation (70.3%) of preferences were reported by staff.
• Familial spiritual beliefs were documented in 75.9% of charts, but end-of-life spiritual needs were documented in only 12.2%.

Conclusions:

• While pediatric hospice programs assess spiritual preferences, documentation of specific end-of-life spiritual needs is insufficient.
• Standardized documentation practices are needed to ensure equitable hospice care by informing providers of patient/family spiritual needs.