Table 1.

Sample Characteristics

Characteristic	US Centers (n = 141)		Australian Center(n = 89)		P *
	No.†	%	No.†	%
Sociodemographic
Child
Age at death, years					NS‡
Mean	10.3		9.3
SD	6.6		5.9
Female sex	66	47	40	45	NS
Family
Parental age at child's death, years					NS‡
Mean	39		39.2
SD	8.2		8.0
Married	121	86	69/83	83	NS
Non-Hispanic white	131	93	79/84	94	NS
Parent education college graduate or higher	75	53	23/85	27	< .01
> 2 children at home at the time of child's illness	25/140	18	10/87	11	NS
Distance from home to hospital, miles					.01
Median	20.3		33.8
IQR	12-41		15-112
Disease and patterns of care
Diagnosis (3 categories)
Hematologic malignancy	70	50	31	35
Solid tumor	42	30	30	34	NS
Brain tumor	29	20	28	31
Duration of disease, days					NS§
Median	589		665
IQR	302-1,285		302-1,369
Parent followed by psychosocial clinician	91/138	66	46/85	54	NS
> 5 days admitted during last month of life	72/140	51	32/87	37	.03
Economic variables
Health insurance
Government insurance only Medicaid (US) or Medicare (AUS)	33	23	45/88	51	< .01
Poverty level∥
< 50% of NMEI	25/138	18	17/78	22	NS
50%-100% of NMEI	45/138	33	18/78	23
> 100% of NMEI	68/138	49	43/78	55

Abbreviations: NS, not significant (P > .05); SD, standard deviation; IQR, interquartile range; NMEI, national median equivalized income.

^*χ² test.

^†Denominator is indicated when different from total sample.

^‡t test.

^§Wilcoxon rank sum test.

^∥Income was equivalized by dividing reported income by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) modified scale, an equivalence factor that accounts for number of equivalent adults in a house (1/0.5/0.3) and then collapsed into three categories according to their relationship to the respective NMEI as reported by OECD for the period the survey was conducted in (see Methods).