The Preference for Acute Rehospitalization Scale: Evaluating Preference for Acute Rehospitalization in Pediatric Hospice Patients.

Introduction

Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, children are able to access pediatric hospice while still pursuing life-prolonging care. This can create confusion between hospice and palliative care staff and families about current goals of care (GOC), which evolve over time.

Methods

Hospice and palliative care teams created, implemented, and evaluated a five-point scale to summarize the Preference for Acute Rehospitalization (PAR) Scale for children on concurrent care hospice. After 3 months, users were surveyed about the PAR Scale.

Results

Most users reported they agreed or strongly agreed the PAR Scale helped them to understand families' GOC and feel more confident giving advice with urgent questions.

Conclusions

The PAR Scale is a useful tool to help hospice and palliative workers quickly identify GOC for families accessing the concurrent care for children hospice benefit. Further validation in a larger study is needed to confirm these results.