Mortality trends for pediatric life-threatening conditions.

Internal data from the sole pediatric hospice in British Columbia were utilized to investigate mortality trends among children dying from life-threatening conditions. Characteristics of the sample (hospice) were compared to that of the population (province) for individuals aged 0 to 18 years from 2002 to 2011. The provincial death rate was 2.30 per 10 000. The sample did not significantly vary with respect to sex and geographic distribution when compared to the population. Infants contributed to a significantly larger proportion of pediatric deaths in the population. Children referred to the hospice were more likely to be diagnosed with cancer and diseases of the nervous system. Only 15% of all pediatric deaths due to disease in the province were cared for by the hospice, calling for the strengthening of interdisciplinary palliative care programs.