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Due to the increasing incidence of terminal illnesses in children, there is great urgency within pediatric medicine to give these patients the best palliative care possible. The main focus of palliative care is to alleviate suffering resulting from the psychophysical condition of the child, which is mostly due to physical pain. The first phase of managing pain in palliative care is quantifying and qualifying pain levels, although this is sometimes difficult to do with pediatric patients. In addition to implementing strategies that alleviate or remove pain for patients, it is also crucial to give patients and their families a feeling of full control over pain. In practice, non-pharmacological and pharmacological methods of analgesia are present. Pharmacological methods include non-opioid and opioid analgesics, followed by co-analgesics as well as methods of regional anesthesia. In order to give these patients the best care possible, it is necessary that the approach be individual, multimodal, multidisciplinary, and considerate of every detail.

Abdominal migraine (AM) is a syndrome usually diagnosed in childhood. The AM syndrome comprises episodic attacks of severe, recurrent, and chronic abdominal pain localized in the periumbilical area, followed by symptoms like headache, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, or pallor. Between the abdominal migraine episodes the child felt good and continued to develop well. The pathophysiological process is presumed to be similar to that of other functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) and cephalic migraine. It is vital to assess anamnesis, dietary and social history, detailed physical examination, and symptom-based guidelines. Evaluation of the patient for the presence of any potential alarming symptoms or signs, to exclude an organic disease, is essential. The major problem is the lack of knowledge regarding its unclear pathophysiology. Nonpharmacological and pharmacological treatment alternatives vary. Although thorough diagnostic criteria under Rome IV classification of FGIDs and International Classification of Headache Disorders are available, AM persists to be an underdiagnosed entity. A definite diagnosis of abdominal migraine allows appropriate management and avoids unnecessary investigations and incorrect treatments.

In many centres for pediatric surgery too many children still experience intense postoperative pain. Factors that contribute to inadequate postoperative pain control in children are: lack of the experience, inadequate use of pain scales, interpatient variability in pain perception and analgesic requirements, differences in pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics, age restricted drug licensing and a relative paucity of researches. The proper pain estimation scales are dependent on the child's age and their understanding of pain and of the scale. Most commonly used drugs in pediatric postoperative pain relief are opioid and nonopioid analgesics (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, paracetamol, metamizole, ketamine, Dexamethasone and Alpha-2-agonists). The use of regional anesthesia techniques is becoming increasingly popular in postoperative analgesia following pediatric surgery. Severe acute postoperative pain in children can have significant long term effects such as chronic pain. Of great importance is that acute postoperative pain in children is optimally managed from the outset.

Introduction: Research evidence indicates that atrial fibrillation (AF) could have a negative impact on the quality-of-life (QoL). AF symptom pattern and AF-related QoL have been associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes. Aim: The aims of the present study are to evaluate AF-related impact on QoL using the Atrial Fibrillation Effect on Quality-of-Life (AFEQT) questionnaire, and to assess the association of QoL with adverse cardiovascular outcomes during the 1-year follow-up. Material and methods: An observational, cohort study that included AF patients treated at the Cardiology Clinic, Clinical Center of Serbia, willing to fill-in AFEQT questionnaire to assess the overall QoL (AFEQT score, 0 to 100) and QoL components: symptoms, daily activities, treatment concerns and treatment satisfaction. During the prospective 1-year follow-up, data on the following outcomes were collected: 1) major adverse cardiovascular outcomes - a combined endpoint, including: stroke/transient ischemic attack, myocardial infarction, percutaneous/surgical coronary revascularization, or cardiovascular death; 2) hospitalization for heart failure. Results: We included 202 AF patients (mean age: 64.5±12.4 years; 62.9% men; 24.3% asymptomatic AF). The mean AFEQT score was 64.3± 8.8. There was a negative correlation between objective estimate of AF-related symptoms and AFEQT score (Spearman rho = -0.489, P

In the paper the results of an epidemiological study conducted in 2010-2011 as a part of the regional project Balkan Epidemiological Study on Child Abuse and Neglect (BECAN) are presented. The goal of the research was to estimate the prevalence of physical, psychological and sexual violence against children in the family as well as prevalence of feeling of neglect in children. Gender and age differences in the prevalence of violence, as well as differences with respect to geographic region and urbanicity of place of the children’s’ residence were also examined. The stratified cluster sample consisted of 4027 children attending the fifth and seventh grades of the primary school and the second grade of the high school. Data was collected by an adapted version of the questionnaire ICAST-C (ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool-Chidren Version - ICAST-C). At least one experience of psychological violence in the lifetime was reported by 68,4% of children, whereas at least one experience of physical violence was reported by 69,2% of children. Feeling of neglect was experienced by 28.8% of children at least once in their lifetime. At least one experience of sexual violence was reported by 8.5% children, whereas 3,7% of them reported the experience of contact sexual violence in the past year. The results indicate that girls are more exposed to psychological violence and report more feeling of neglect. Conversely, boys report more exposure to sexual violence. The rate of severe forms of physical, psychological and sexual violence is about 0.5 to 1%. [Projekat je realizovan kroz Sedmi okvirni program Evropske Komisije(FP7), pod oznakom HEALTH-F2-2009-223478]