Attitudes and Practices of Pediatric Oncologists Regarding Palliative Care Consultation for Pediatric Oncology Patients

Objective: We sought to describe palliative care services available to children with cancer along with pediatric oncologists' current and ideal practices of palliative care involvement in children with cancer. Design: A novel survey tool was administered via REDCap to attending pediatric oncologists in the United States. The survey remained open from June to September 2020. Results: A total of 265 survey responses were evaluated. Most respondents endorsed that palliative care should "always" be consulted for the following scenarios: new diagnosis of advanced/ metastatic disease (53%), uncontrolled symptoms (65%), bone marrow transplant (55%), and relapsed/refractory disease (73%). For those same scenarios, the majority noted the current practice was to "sometimes" or "usually" consult. Most respondents (92.6%) felt that palliative care should be consulted more frequently than they were currently being consulted. Conclusions: Compared with the current practice for various pediatric oncology departments, palliative care was not consulted as often as oncologists desired. While barriers to palliative care consultation are outlined in the literature, exploration of how to address them as well as identification of barriers specific to oncologists who are in favor of palliative care consultation are not well-described. Further research exploring these specific barriers is necessary to understand the disconnect between oncologists' attitudes and palliative care consultation.