Using the ‘Phase of Illness’ tool in paediatric palliative care.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A prospective study to evaluate the inter-rater reliability of the‘Phase of Illness’ tool in paediatric palliative care.
IRAS ID
205248
Contact name
Anna-Karenia Anderson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
The ‘Phase of Illness (POI)’ tool defines distinct phases of a palliative patient’s illness. The five phases are stable, unstable, deteriorating, dying and deceased. The tool is used to categorise patients based on their present condition. The POI was developed in Australia as part of their healthcare funding system to fairly allocate money and resources based on patients care needs. The tool has recently been piloted within the NHS and was found to be highly predictive of the costs needed to meet patients’ end of life needs.
Ensuring that professionals show a high level of agreement when assigning patients to a POI is essential if the tool is to be implemented effectively. There is good evidence that healthcare professionals agree when categorising adults using this tool, however there is no evidence of this when the tool is used for children. It is also essential that the definitions within the tool are relevant for children as they were not specifically designed for this population. The aim of this study is to ascertain healthcare professionals level of agreement when categorising children to a POI and to explore if the tool is relevant for use with children.
Members of a specialist palliative care team (PATCH) at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and Shooting Star Chase Children’s Hospices will be eligible to participate in this study. All children under the age of 18 and currently under the care of or newly referred to the team during the study period will be included in professionals assessments.
This is a six month prospective study and data collection will take place during the teams weekly handover meetings. Healthcare professionals will be asked to assign patients to a POI and answer two questions related to the assessment process. This should take ten minutes in total each week.REC name
East of England - Cambridge South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/EE/0105
Date of REC Opinion
6 Apr 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion