ESPE Abstracts

Background: Through nursing collaboration within the Canadian Pediatric Endocrine Nurses (CPEN) network it has become evident that there are differences in practices across the country in the suppression of puberty.

Objective and hypotheses: Exploration of these differences for pubertal suppression in Central Precocious Puberty (CPP) and Transgender (TG) youth coupled with a thorough search of current literature can inform future best practice. Aside from effective suppression of puberty, goals of treatment should include 1) minimizing clinical side effects of treatment, 2) lowering pain and anxiety of anticipated treatments for child and parent, 3) providing least cost alternatives for the family related to the prescribed product and time expended for injections around parking costs and missed time at work and school, and 4) considering least cost options for the healthcare system related to nursing time for teaching and administering the treatment.

Method: Pediatric endocrine nurses from 15 centres across Canada were invited to participate in an online survey that explored their clinical practice in providing treatment for pubertal suppression.

Results: Presented data includes such elements as products, dosing schedules, techniques used to lessen pain and anxiety, aspects of funding and cost coverage and options for who administers the medication.

Conclusion: Through collecting and exploring these results, we provide information that will be used to identify and disseminate best practices related to suppression of puberty in CPP and TG individuals.