Communicating with parents after a child’s death

Article Outline

• Copyright

In this issue of The Journal, Meert et al report on interviews with parents who recently lost a child in the pediatric intensive care unit (ICU) about their perspectives on physician-parent conferences. They surveyed 56 parents of 48 children who had died in the pediatric ICU of one of six children’s hospitals in the NICHD network. The results showed that the majority wanted to meet with their child’s intensive care physician, and 82% of these were willing to return to the hospital for a meeting. They wanted to be able to discuss the sequence of events that led to the ICU admission and death, cause of death, autopsy results, genetic risks, and many other issues. They also wanted the opportunity to seek reassurance, and the opportunity to voice any possible complaints, but also to express gratitude. It would seem that routinely establishing such meetings is going to be the standard of care.