Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Palliative Medicine
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
0269216309104892v1
23/6/518    most recent
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Knapp, C
Right arrow Articles by Shenkman, E
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Knapp, C
Right arrow Articles by Shenkman, E
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

research-article

An evaluation of two decision-making scales for children with life-limiting illnesses

C Knapp

Department of Epidemiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida cak{at}ichp.ufl.edu

IC Huang

Department of Epidemiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

V Madden

Department of Epidemiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

S Vadaparampil

Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida

G Quinn

Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida

E Shenkman

Department of Epidemiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

Purpose

Annually, about 500,000 children are coping with life-limiting illnesses. Many of these children could benefit from pediatric palliative care which provides supportive services. These services can also aid parents in decision making. In order to measure the effect of pediatric palliative care programs on decision making, a valid and reliable tool must be identified. This study aims to validate the psychometric properties of the Decisional Conflict Scale (DCS) and the COMRADE instruments for children with life-limiting illnesses.

Methods

Analyses were conducted using survey data collected from 266 parents whose Medicaid enrolled children have life-limiting illnesses.

Results

Results of the analyses suggest that the DCS has better psychometric properties for measuring decision making within the population of children with life-limiting illnesses than the COMRADE.

Conclusion

Pediatric palliative care programs should use the DCS to measure the effectiveness of services aimed at supporting families with high levels of decisional conflict.

Key Words: decision-making • paediatrics • validation

This version was published on September 1, 2009

Palliative Medicine, Vol. 23, No. 6, 518-525 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0269216309104892
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?