CANCER-PATIENT AND STAFF PERCEPTIONS OF CARING VS CLINICAL CARE

Two questions were investigated: (1) whether cancer patients (n = 72) and staff (n = 63) have different cognitive representations of the con cepts 'caring' (in Swedish: omvardnad) and 'clinical care' (in Swedish : vard), and (2) whether two different wordings of the response catego ries used by patients and staff to rank the perceived importance of 50 specific caring behaviors ('Old' response format: 'of importance'-'of no importance' vs 'New' format: 'more or less important') in relation to these concepts would produce different results. A Swedish question naire version of the CARE-Q instrument was used. Participants were ran domized to one of four research conditions: (1) Caring/Old, (2) Caring /New, (3) Clinical care/Old, and (4) Clinical care/New, and asked to r ank the importance of the 50 CARE-Q behaviors for that specific concep t/response format combination. Results demonstrated that response form ats did not affect patient or staff answers. Neither group did to any great extent value CARE-Q behaviors differently when regarded as examp les of 'caring' vs 'clinical care'. The assumption that different cogn itive representations of the concepts or that a specific wording of re sponse categories had affected previous CARE-Q results was not substan tiated.