Racial Disparities in the Provision of Pediatric End-of-Life Services: A Systematic Review with Recommendations for Child Life Specialists

Only available as part of a package

In the literature, less is known about racial disparities that exist for pediatric services during end-of-life. To synthesize the literature and provide recommendations for child life specialists, a systematic review was conducted. Results of our review highlight a lack of research discussing psychosocial variables and provide insight into services that fall within the practice of child life including family education and support during decision making. Recommendations for child life practice and research initiatives that could fill significant gaps in the pediatric literature will be discussed.

Objectives:

Participants will be able to describe the rationale for studying racial disparities in psychosocial service provision.

Participants will be able to recite specific conclusions from studies found in the systematic review.

Participants will be able to apply practice recommendations informed by the systematic review.

1 PDU, Ethics Domain

Kathryn Cantrell

PhD, CCLS

Texas Woman's University

Kathryn Cantrell is an assistant professor in child development and child life at Texas Woman's University and a Certified Child Life Specialist. She earned her PhD in Counseling and School Psychology from the University of Massachusetts Boston and her MA in Child Development from Tufts University. Dr. Cantrell completed her child life internship at Tufts Floating Hospital for Children and worked as a child life specialist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Dr. Cantrell is also trained as a pediatric psychologist and completed her APA internship at South Shore Mental Health where she specialized in treating child and adolescent anxiety disorders, medical trauma, and encopresis. Dr. Cantrell has presented and published in the areas of illness disclosure, racial disparities in child life services, online patient communities, play-based interventions for decreasing anxiety, and pediatric research methods. Dr. Cantrell is a former Executive Editor of The Journal of Child Life: Psychosocial Theory and Practice and a current Research Fellow with ACLP.