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Purpose: For children with advanced cancer and their families, communication about prognosis is critical. Unfortunately, data demonstrate that prognostic communication occurs infrequently and inconsistently across advancing illness. Prior to developing an intervention to improve prognostic communication, we aimed to (1) characterize parent and oncologist perspectives on "best" approaches for prognostic communication, and (2) explore similarities and differences between parent and oncologist perspectives., Methods: Children with poor-prognosis solid tumors, their parents, and oncologists were followed prospectively for 24 months or until death. Matched semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents and oncologists 0-7 days after medical encounters at timepoints of disease progression or relapse. Reflexive thematic analysis was conducted to describe parent and oncologist impressions of communication quality., Results: A total of 68 interviews were conducted following serial disease reevaluation encounters involving 13 parents and five oncologists. Nine main themes were identified as "best" approaches: (1) speaking with honesty and clarity, (2) leaving room for hope, (3) leaning into a long-standing relationship, (4) personalizing language, (5) empowering the patient and family, (6) collaborating with the multidisciplinary team, (7) providing anticipatory guidance, (8) setting the scene, and (9) creating a therapeutic space. Parents and oncologists generally agreed on themes related to helpful communication approaches, while parents more explicitly described communication pitfalls., Conclusion: Parents and oncologists described clear recommendations for helpful communication strategies and pitfalls to avoid during difficult prognostic disclosure. Future work should integrate patient perspectives in the design and testing of an intervention to improve prognostic communication in advanced childhood cancer., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Purpose of Review: This manuscript aims to describe evidence-based best practices to guide clinicians in communicating with pediatric patients and their families about clinical trial enrollment., Recent Findings: The standard paradigm for discussing clinical trial enrollment with pediatric oncology patients and their families inconsistently enables or facilitates true informed consent. Evidence exists to suggest that adopting a shared decision-making approach may improve patient and family understanding. When navigating communication about clinical trials, clinicians should integrate the following evidence-based communication approaches: (1) extend dialogue about clinical trial enrollment across multiple conversations, allowing families space and time to process information independently; (2) use core communication skills such as avoiding jargon, checking for understanding, and responding to emotion. Clinicians should consider factors at the individual, team, organizational, community, and policy levels that may impact clinical trial communication with pediatric cancer patients and their families. This article reviews learnable skills that clinicians can master to optimize communication about clinical trial enrollment with pediatric cancer patients and their families., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Background and Objectives: Parents of children with cancer perceive deficits in quality of prognostic communication. How oncologists disclose information about disease progression and incurability and how prognostic communication impacts parental understanding of prognosis are poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to (1) characterize communication strategies used by pediatric oncologists to share prognostic information across a child's advancing illness course and (2) explore relationships between different communication approaches and concordance of oncologist-parent prognostic understanding., Methods: In this prospective, longitudinal, mixed-methods study, serial disease reevaluation conversations were audio recorded across an advancing illness course for children with cancer and their families. Surveys and interviews also were conducted with oncologists and caregivers at specific time points targeting disease progression., Results: Seventeen children experienced advancing illness on study, resulting in 141 recordings (40 hours). Fewer than 4% of recorded dialogue constituted prognostic communication, with most codes (77%) occurring during discussions about frank disease progression. Most recordings at study entry contained little or no prognosis communication dialogue, and oncologists rated curability lower than parents across all dyads. Parent-oncologist discordance typically was preceded by conversations without incurability statements; ultimately, concordance was achieved in most cases after the oncologist made direct statements about incurability. Content analysis revealed 3 distinct patterns (absent, deferred, and seed planting) describing the provision of prognostic communication across an advancing pediatric cancer course., Conclusions: When oncologists provided direct statements about incurability, prognostic understanding appeared to improve. Further research is needed to determine optimal timing for prognostic disclosure in alignment with patient and family preferences., Competing Interests: POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors have indicated they have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2021 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.)

Within the field of pediatric oncology, communication skills training (CST) has been recognized as a high priority by professional and accrediting organizations. However, the effectiveness of formalized CST interventions for pediatric oncology providers remains poorly understood. We systematically searched PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and PsycInfo for original research articles assessing the effectiveness and quality of CST interventions targeting pediatric oncology clinicians. From 971 deduplicated references, eight articles representing six communication interventions were eligible for inclusion. This review summarizes the existing literature with respect to CST content, intervention methodology, targeted outcome metrics, measurement tools, short-term and sustained benefits, design biases, and availability of materials to allow for reproduction of interventions. Ultimately, studies on CST in pediatric oncology are few, heterogeneous, and lacking in standardized outcome metrics; however, synthesis of the available literature suggests feasibility and effectiveness. Increased scientific rigor is needed, and specific recommendations to advance the field are described., (© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: High-quality oncology care is marked by skillful communication, yet little is known about patient and family communication perceptions or content preferences. Our study sought to elicit pediatric oncology patient and parent perceptions of early cancer communication to establish whether informational needs were met and identify opportunities for enhanced communication throughout cancer care., Method: An original survey instrument was developed, pretested, and administered to 129 patients, age 10-18 years, and their parents at 3 cancer centers between 2011 and 2015. Statistical analysis of survey items about perceived communication, related associations, and patient/parent concordance was performed., Results: A greater percentage of participants reported "a lot" of discussion about the physical impact of cancer (patients, 58.1% [n = 75]; parents, 69.8% [n = 90]) compared with impact on quality of life (QOL) (patients, 44.2% [n = 57]; parents, 55.8% [n = 72]) or emotional impact (patients, 31.8% [n = 41]; parents, 43.4% [n = 56]). One fifth of patients (20.9% [n = 27]) reported they had no up-front discussion about the emotional impact of cancer treatment. Parents indicated a desire for increased discussion regarding impact on family life (27.9% [n = 36]), long-term QOL (27.9% [n = 36]), and daily activities (20.2% [n = 26]). Patients more frequently than parents indicated a desire for increased physician/patient discussion around the impact on daily activities (patients, 40.3% [n = 52]; parents, 21.7% [n = 28]; P < .001), long-term QOL (patients, 34.9% [n = 45]; parents, 16.3% [n = 21]; P < .001), pain management (patients, 23.3% [n = 30]; parents, 7% [n = 9]; P < .001), physical symptom management (patients, 24% [n = 31]; parents, 7.8% [n = 10]; P < .001), short-term QOL (patients, 23.3% [n = 30]; parents, 9.3% [n = 12]; P = .001), and curative potential (patients, 21.7% [n = 28]; parents, 8.5% [n = 11]; P = .002, P values calculated using McNemar's test)., Conclusion: Oncologists may not be meeting the informational needs of many patients and some parents/caregivers. Communication could be enhanced through increased direct physician-patient communication, as well as proactive discussion of emotional symptoms and impact of cancer on QOL., (© 2019 American Cancer Society.)

Historically, communication research in pediatric oncology has relied on surveys and interviews, resulting in cross-sectional and retrospective studies constrained by selection, recognition, and recall biases. This systematic review identifies and synthesizes the published literature analyzing primary data from recorded conversations between pediatric oncologists, patients with cancer, and their families, with the following objectives: (1) to identify the extent and content of the evidence base, (2) to describe methodological strategies utilized in the analysis of recorded medical dialogue, (3) to aggregate salient findings, and (4) to generate recommendations for future prospective research related to analysis of medical dialogue in pediatric oncology., (© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Background: Medical trainees consistently report suboptimal instruction and poor self-confidence in communication skills. Despite this deficit, few established training programs provide comprehensive, pediatric-specific communication education, particularly in the provision of "bad news." To our knowledge, no programs currently use bereaved parent educators to facilitate communication training for pediatric subspecialty trainees., Procedure: The authors designed and implemented a pilot communication training seminar in which bereaved parent educators and faculty facilitators led small groups in interactive, role-play scenarios. Surveys incorporating a retrospective preprogram assessment item to account for response-shift bias were used to assess short- and long-term changes in trainee comfort with delivering "bad news.", Results: Fifteen pediatric fellowship trainees participated in the communication seminar; complete data were available for 12 participants. After accounting for response-shift bias, participants reported significant improvement in overall preparedness, breaking bad news to a patient and family, and including the adolescent or young adult patient in conversations. Additionally, participants reported a significant improvement in their ability to address a patient and family's need for information, emotional suffering at the end of life (EOL), if and when a patient should be included in the conversation, and EOL care decisions. The participant's self-perceived improvement in comfort and preparedness persisted over time., Conclusions: Communication training for pediatric subspecialty trainees using bereaved parent educators is feasible and effective. Both medical trainee and bereaved parent participants benefited from involvement in this pilot study. Further iterations of this training will be modified to assess objective measures of improvement in trainees' communication skills., (© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Background: High-quality clinical care requires excellent interdisciplinary communication, especially during emergencies, and no tools exist to evaluate communication in critical care. We describe the development of a pragmatic tool focusing on interdisciplinary communication during patient deterioration (CritCom). Methods: The preliminary CritCom tool was developed after a literature review and consultation with a multidisciplinary panel of global experts in communication, pediatric oncology, and critical care to review the domains and establish content validity iteratively. Face and linguistic validity were established through cognitive interviews, translation, and linguistic synthesis. We conducted a pilot study among an international group of clinicians to establish reliability and usability. Results: After reviewing 105 potential survey items, we identified 52 items across seven domains. These were refined through cognitive interviews with 36 clinicians from 15 countries. CritCom was piloted with 433 clinicians (58% nurses, 36% physicians, and 6% other) from 42 hospitals in 22 countries. Psychometric testing guided the refinement of the items for the final tool. CritCom comprised six domains with five items each (30 total). The final tool has excellent reliability (Cronbach's alpha 0.81-0.86), usability (93% agree or strongly agree that the tool is easy to use), and similar performance between English and Spanish tools. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to establish the final 6-domain structure. Conclusions: CritCom is a reliable and pragmatic bilingual tool to assess the quality of interdisciplinary communication around patient deterioration for children in diverse resource levels globally. Critcom results can be used to design and evaluate interventions to improve team communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most children with cancer and their parents desire honest communication about prognosis, even when prognosis is poor. Unfortunately, many parents perceive deficits in communication about prognosis, and strategies are needed to encourage timely person-centered prognostic discussions. To better understand patterns in prognostic communication, we audio-recorded serial disease re-evaluation conversations between pediatric oncologists, children with poor-prognosis cancer diagnoses, and their families across the illness trajectory. Prior analysis revealed broad prognostic communication patterns, including a "seed planting" approach where prognostic information was offered gradually across time. In this case series, we examine the seed planting approach more closely, identifying language strategies that clinicians used to help patients and families gain insight into prognostic gravity as their illness evolved. Although further research is needed to measure the full impact of a seed planting approach, this case series explores a longitudinal communication strategy with potential to improve prognostic communication across an advancing illness course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Most parents of children with cancer desire honest prognostic communication, yet oncologists often avoid clear prognostic disclosure. This study explored differences between oncologists' private assessments of prognosis and their prognostic communication with patients and parents. Patients and Methods: In this prospective, longitudinal, mixed-methods study, we audio-recorded serial disease reevaluation conversations between children with advancing cancer, parents, and primary oncologists and separately surveyed and interviewed oncologists at disease progression time points. At time points when oncologists privately described curability as ≤10%, content analysis was used to compare prognostic language in recorded dialogue with private responses about prognosis. Results: Of 33 enrolled patient–parent dyads, 17 patients with high-risk cancer under the care of 6 primary oncologists experienced disease progression during the study period. In 95% of oncologist interviews at disease progression time points, oncologists either predicted curability to be ≤10% or incurable. In most interviews (82%), oncologists stated unequivocally that chances of cure were ≤10%, yet did not communicate these low odds during recorded discussions at the same time point. Analysis revealed three distinct communication patterns through which oncologists softened prognostic disclosure to patients and families: (1) space-holding for hope of cure: statements acknowledging difficult prognosis yet leaving room for possibility of cure; (2) vague warning: statements implying that cancer may progress without offering specifics; and (3) data without interpretation: statements describing disease progression findings in detail without explaining what this meant for the patient's future life or survival. Conclusion: Pediatric oncologists often temper their assessment of poor prognosis when speaking with patients and families. Future work should explore serious conversation guides and other clinical interventions aimed at encouraging person-centered prognostic disclosure for patients with advancing cancer and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective communication is integral to patient and family-centered care in pediatric and adolescent and young adult (AYA) oncology and improving healthcare delivery and outcomes. There is limited knowledge about whether AYAs and parents have similar communication preferences and needs. By eliciting and comparing communication advice from AYAs and parents, we can identify salient guidance for how clinicians can better communicate. We performed secondary analysis of semi-structured interviews from 2 qualitative communication studies. In one study, 80 parents of children with cancer during treatment, survivorship, or bereavement were interviewed. In the second study, AYAs with cancer during treatment or survivorship were interviewed. We asked AYAs and parents to provide communication advice for oncology clinicians. Using thematic analysis, we identified categories of advice related to three overarching themes: interpersonal relationships, informational preferences, and delivery of treatment, resources, and medical care. AYAs and parents provided similar advice about the need for compassion, strong connections, hopefulness, commitment, and transparent honesty However, AYAs placed additional emphasis on clinicians maintaining a calm demeanor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Communication challenges in the neonatal intensive care unit include fragmented communication, challenges managing expectations amidst uncertainty, and navigating complex medical information. Social workers are well suited to mitigate these challenges. Objective: In this study, we aimed to characterize the extent and nature of social worker participation in family conferences for critically ill infants. Design: We used a longitudinal observational mixed-methods design, enrolling infants with a neurological condition, their parent(s), and their clinicians. All audio-recorded conferences were transcribed and de-identified. Emergent themes and subthemes were identified using conventional content analysis. Results: We enrolled 40 infants and 61 parents. Sixty-eight conferences were held and audio recorded for 24 infants. Social workers were present for 51 of these conferences (n = 51/68, 75%) across 18 cases (n = 18/24, 75%). We identified four themes, conceptualized as distinct roles played by social workers in family conferences: (1) Translator: social workers served as a communicative bridge between parents and the medical team; (2) Coordinator: social workers simplified logistics and connected parents to community resources, including home health agencies and financial assistance; (3) Expectation manager: social workers provided anticipatory guidance and helped parents conceptualize the remainder of the hospital stay, discharge, and life at home; and (4) Advocate: social workers validated parental values and concerns and provided immediate emotional support. Conclusions: Social workers participated in three-quarters of family conferences for critically ill infants. When they participated, they facilitated communication, coordinated care, managed expectations, and advocated for families. These findings underscore the important, varied, and concurrent roles social workers play in the care of critically ill infants. Future communication and family support interventions should leverage these distinct roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Skillful use of silence by clinicians can support patient-centered communication. However, what makes a period of silence feel meaningful is not well understood. This study aimed to characterize profound, skillful silences during difficult conversations between pediatric oncologists, children with advancing cancer, and their families. Methods: We audio-recorded serial disease reevaluation discussions between pediatric oncologists, patients with high-risk cancer, and their families across 24 months or until death, whichever occurred first. Using an inductive process, we performed content analysis across all dialogue recorded at timepoints of disease progression to examine types of silence. Results: 17 patient-parent dyads with disease progression yielded 141 recorded conversations. Inductive coding yielded a layered typology of silence, including "intentional silence" (≥5 seconds), "profound silence" (≥5 seconds following receipt of difficult information, juxtaposed with statements of shared understanding, emotion, or enlightenment), and "stacked silence" (series of silences juxtaposed within dialogue). Intentional silence lasting ≥5 seconds occurred 238 times in 35/49 "bad news" recordings; nearly half (103/238) of these silences were identified as profound silence, in which silences appeared to create space for processing, allowed for questions to emerge, and synergized with empathic and affirmational statements. In most cases, profound silences involved the juxtaposition, or stacking, of multiple silences close together. Conclusions: Profound silences occur often during conversations about advancing pediatric cancer and share distinct characteristics. Opportunities exist to teach clinicians to use profound and stacked silences with intention during difficult conversations as a fundamental aspect of communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Parents previously identified eight core functions of communication with clinicians in pediatric oncology. Objective: To determine clinicians' views on communication functions in pediatric oncology. Design: In 10 focus groups with 59 clinicians at two academic centers, we asked open-ended questions about communication goals and purposes. Then we presented definitions of eight communication functions previously described by parents and explored clinicians' perspectives. Setting/Subjects: We performed separate focus groups for nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians, and psychosocial professionals. Measurements: Thematic analysis of focus group transcripts. Results: Clinicians identified six functions in response to open-ended questions. After reviewing the eight functions described by parents, all clinicians agreed with the framework: building relationships, exchanging information, making decisions, enabling family self-management, managing uncertainty, responding to emotions, supporting hope, and providing validation. Conclusions: Pediatric oncology clinicians corroborated this functional communication framework. Clinicians and researchers can utilize this framework to guide care and research in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Communication serves several functions in pediatric oncology, but communication deficiencies persist. Little is known about the broad spectrum of barriers contributing to these deficiencies. Identifying these barriers will support new strategies to improve communication. Methods: The authors performed 10 focus groups on perceived communication barriers with nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians, and psychosocial professionals across 2 academic institutions. They analyzed transcripts by adapting a multilevel framework from organizational psychology. Results: The authors identified 6 levels of barriers to communication from the clinicians' perspectives: individual, team, organization, collaborating hospital, community, and policy. Individual barriers were subdivided into clinician characteristics, family characteristics, or characteristics of the clinician‐family interaction. Within each level and sublevel, several manifestations of barriers were identified. Some barriers, such as a lack of comfort with difficult topics (individual), cultural differences (individual), a lack of a shared team mental model (team), and time pressure (organization), manifested similarly across professions and institutions. Other barriers, such as a need for boundaries (individual), intimidation or embarrassment of family (individual), unclear roles and authority (team), and excessive logistical requirements (policy), manifested differently across professions. With the exception of collaborating hospitals, participants from all professions identified barriers from each level. Physicians did not discuss collaborating hospital barriers. Conclusions: Nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians, and psychosocial professionals experience communication barriers at multiple levels, which range from individual‐ to policy‐level barriers. Yet their unique clinical roles and duties can lead to different manifestations of some barriers. This multilevel framework might help clinicians and researchers to identify targets for interventions to improve communication experiences for families in pediatric oncology. Lay Summary: Clinicians and families experience many barriers to communication in pediatric oncology.The authors performed 10 focus groups with 59 clinicians who cared for children with cancer. In these focus groups, barriers to effective communication were discussed.In this article, the authors report on an analysis of the responses. Six levels of barriers to communication were found: individual, team, organization, collaborating hospital, community, and policy.With an understanding of these barriers, interventions can be developed to target these barriers in hopes of improving communication for parents and patients in pediatric oncology. Clinicians and families experience many barriers to communication in pediatric oncology. A content analysis of clinician focus groups identifies 6 levels of communication barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parents who experience the loss of a child have unique and valuable insights into the grief journey and can help health care providers identify key components intrinsic to the development, implementation, and maintenance of a comprehensive bereavement program. The bereavement program at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital was developed by pediatric palliative care experts in collaboration with bereaved parents to standardize and improve the institutional support provided to families around and after the death of a child. This article describes the components of a parent-derived bereavement program and presents early results on the effects of specific program components. The program, under the leadership of the bereavement coordinator, includes clinical and supportive interventions offered throughout the grief journey, parent-created bereavement support materials, and opportunities for parents and families to participate in research, quality improvement initiatives and educational interventions. Parents report that services and interventions provided through the bereavement program are beneficial to families after the death of their child. In addition, both health care providers and bereaved parents report that participation in educational interventions positively impacts their experiences as clinicians and parents, respectively. The innovative nature of this parent-driven, comprehensive bereavement program may serve as a paradigm for the development of bereavement programs in the fields of pediatrics, palliative oncology and hospice and palliative medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Bereaved parents experience significant psychosocial and health sequelae, suggesting that this population may benefit from the ongoing extension of support and resources throughout the grief journey. The interaction of hospital staff with patients and families at the end of a child's life and after death profoundly affects parental grief, offering a unique opportunity for the medical community to positively impact the bereavement experience. The current study was conducted to explore the role of the health care team and medical institutions in the grief journeys of parents whose child died a cancer-related death.Methods: Eleven bereaved parents participated in 2 focus groups. Responses to each of the 3 main prompts were coded and analyzed independently using semantic content analysis techniques.Results: Four main concepts were identified within the parental narratives, including the importance of strong and ongoing relationships between providers and bereaved families, the importance of high-quality communication, the effect of negative experiences between providers and families on parental grief, and the importance of the institution's role in the grief journeys of bereaved parents.Conclusions: Bereaved parents consistently identified the critical role played by medical staff and medical institutions throughout the grief journey. Key components of bereavement support identified by parents should serve to guide the actions of providers as well as provide a template for the development of a comprehensive bereavement program within an institution. Cancer 2016. © 2016 American Cancer Society. Cancer 2016;122:2757-2765. © 2016 American Cancer Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early integration of pediatric palliative care (PPC) for children with life-threatening conditions and their families enhances the provision of holistic care, addressing psychological, social, spiritual, and physical concerns, without precluding treatment with the goal of cure. PPC involvement ideally extends throughout the illness trajectory to improve continuity of care for patients and families. Although current PPC models focus primarily on the hospital setting, community-based PPC (CBPPC) programs are increasingly integral to the coordination, continuity, and provision of quality care. In this review, the authors examine the purpose, design, and infrastructure of CBPPC in the United States, highlighting eligibility criteria, optimal referral models to enhance early involvement, and fundamental tenets of CBPPC. This article also appraises the role of CBPPC in promoting family-centered care. This model strives to enhance shared decision making, facilitate seamless handoffs of care, maintain desired locations of care, and ease the end of life for children who die at home. The effect of legislation on the advent and evolution of CBPPC also is discussed, as is an assessment of the current status of state-specific CBPPC programs and barriers to implementation of CBPPC. Finally, strategies and resources for designing, implementing, and maintaining quality standards in CBPPC programs are reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Conversations about dignity are fundamental to person-centered care in pediatrics, yet practical language strategies to promote and support dignity remain understudied. To address this gap, we aimed to identify and characterize language used by pediatric oncologists to recognize and affirm dignity across advancing illness. METHODS: In this longitudinal prospective study, we audio-recorded serial disease reevaluation encounters between pediatric oncologists, children with cancer, and families across 24 months or until the child's death. Using a hybrid deductive--inductive qualitative approach, we defined dignity language a priori on the basis of existing descriptions of dignity in the literature and then conducted a content analysis to refine the definition specific to pediatric cancer care before coding serial medical encounters. Thematic frequencies were reported by using descriptive statistics. RESULTS: A total of 91 discussions at timepoints of disease progression were audio-recorded for 36 patients and their families. No dignity language was identified in nearly half (45%) of "bad news" encounters, and the time spent by the oncologist engaging in dignity language represented a minority (<7%) of overall recorded dialogue. Within coded dialogue, we characterized 3 key themes upholding dignity language (empowerment, autonomy, respect). CONCLUSIONS: Opportunities exist to improve dignity communication in childhood cancer, and the authors propose a conceptual model ("Lend an EAR") to guide dignity-based communication in pediatric cancer. Future research should emphasize patient and parent perspectives on language to support dignity for children with advanced cancer, with stakeholder-driven refinement of the Lend an EAR model before integration and testing in communication skills training programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To describe the tensions experienced by clinicians and psychosocial professionals that affect communication in pediatric oncology.Methods: Ten focus groups with nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians, and psychosocial professionals at 2 US institutions. We analyzed transcripts using thematic analysis, assessing tensions experienced when communicating with parents.Results: We identified 5 themes of tensions, defined as challenges experienced when clinicians and psychosocial professionals are trying to achieve multiple conflicting goals or obligations while communicating: (1) Supporting parental hopes while providing honest opinions and information; (2) disclosing all possible outcomes while avoiding the creation of new worries or uncertainties; (3) building relationships while maintaining personal boundaries; (4) disclosing sensitive information while adhering to professional role and perceived authority; (5) validating parental beliefs or decisions while fulfilling obligation for honesty. Some tensions represented conflicts between different communication goals. Others represented conflicts between a communication goal and another obligation.Conclusion: Clinicians and psychosocial professionals experience tensions that affect communication with parents in pediatric oncology. Some tensions might be addressed with interventions or education. Others will require further analysis to provide sufficient guidance to clinicians.Practice Implications: Unaddressed tensions might lead to poor communication and clinician burnout. Future work should explore solutions to these tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Insufficient communication from the medical team following a child's death may compound parental grief. Pediatric residents care for children who die, yet the landscape of condolence expression education within residency programs has not been studied.Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate pediatric residents' levels of experience and comfort with condolence expression and to assess their needs and desires for training in condolence expression.Methods: A cross-sectional, mixed-methods survey was developed by palliative care clinicians in collaboration with bereaved parents. In 2020, following pilot testing, an electronic survey measuring resident experience with, comfort with, and training on condolence expression was distributed to 202 third-year pediatric residents across 17 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited programs representing varying sizes and geographic regions.Results: Ten percent of pediatric residents surveyed reported having training on condolence expression. Almost all residents considered condolence expression to be beneficial for bereaved families and most for clinicians, too, yet very very few had formally expressed condolences in their roles as physicians: 83.1% had never written a condolence letter; 85% had never made a condolence phone call; and 90.5% had never attended a memorial event. Commonly reported barriers to condolence expression included lack of experience and training, as well as concern about upsetting families.Conclusions: Pediatric residents lack comfort with and training in condolence expression and desire education to address these gaps. These findings should inform development and investigation of educational resources and training opportunities for residents to learn and practice compassionate provision of condolences to grieving families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]