Increase resilience of caregivers in paediatric palliative care by supporting reflection on emotions

Abstract

Every year 5000-7000 children in the Netherlands with a life-threatening or life-limiting illness are eligible for palliative care. This care aims to improve the quality of life for both child and family in these last days, months or years. Providing palliative care and supporting these families is an intensive job. A close and trustful relationship is needed between the caregiver and the child/family to provide good care. Given the physical, psychological and spiritual problems of the children this relation can be long-lasting, intense and emotional, making providing this care a demanding job. The Pallas helps caregivers to deal with the issues and challenges of their demanding job by helping them to explore their feelings and reflect on them. This is currently often overlooked because of lack of awareness about the importance of reflecting on their emotions. Next to this, caregivers do not know how to properly reflect and where to start. The app uses small assignments that use a combination of presets, suggestions and open questions to make sure that different types of caregivers with different levels of experience are able to tell their story, explore their feelings.