An estimation of the number of children requiring pediatric palliative care in Italy

Table 1 Comparison of PC needs in adults and children in Italy

	Pediatric Population	Adult Population
Prevalence of PC needs referred to 100,000 inhabitants of any age	34–54 children per 100,000 inhabitants of any age	830–1100 adults per 100,000 inhabitants of any age
PC prevalence needs referred to 10,000 children or adults	20–32 children per 10,000 children (0–18 years)	100–140 adults per 10,000 adults (> 18 years)
Prevalence of specialized PC needs referred to 100,000 inhabitants of any age	18 children per 100,000 inhabitants of any age Of these: 3 per 100,000 inhabitants are oncological patients 15 per 100,000 inhabitants are non-oncological patients	830–1100 adults per 100,000 inhabitants of any age
Death events in patients with PC needs/year*	n = 1706 Children (67.4% of the total*)	n = 454,035–504,484 Adults

Total Italian population: 60,359,546 inhabitants (10,270,099 aged 0–18 years, 50,089,447 aged > 18 years [7])
*Total death events in Italy in 2019: 633,133, of which 2528 in the pediatric population (50% of those in patients aged < 1 year); sources: [8])

ISSN: 1824-7288