Palliative care programmes have the potential to affect several health outcomes for children and families, including reducing decisional conflict.
Method: A telephone survey was conducted with 140 parents of children with life-limiting illnesses enrolled in Florida's publicly funded paediatric palliative care programme (Partners in Care: Together for Kids).
Results: Multivariate results suggest that parents with less than a high school education had decisional conflict scores (DCS) that were 13 points higher (p<0.05) than parents with some college education. In addition, parents who indicated that they had recently made a decision for their children had DCS scores that were 7 points higher (p<0.05) than parents who indicated they had not.
Discussion: Our findings suggest that paediatric palliative care programmes should treat parents with lower educational levels as being particularly vulnerable and should consider allocating additional resources to them when a decision for their children is imminent.