Cancer patient and staff perceptions of caring and clinical care in free versus forced choice response formats

Two questions were investigated: whether cancer patients (n = 32) and staff (n = 30) have different cognitive representations of the concepts 'caring' (Swedish: 'omvardnad') and 'clinical care' (Swedish: 'vard'), and whether r esults differ between forced vs, fret: choice response formats. Two Swedish versions of the CARE-Q instrument were used: (i) a CARE-Q sorting (forced format) and (ii) a CARE-Questionnaire (free format). Four groups of patient s and 4 groups of staff completed (i) the forced format/caring. (ii) the fo rced format.:clinical care, (iii) the free format/caring and (iv) the free format/clinical care versions, respectively. Participants were asked to ran k the importance of 50 CARE-Q behaviours for the specific method/concept co mbination. Results demonstrated that neither patients nor staff, to any gre at extent, valued CARE-Q subscales differently when regarded as examples of 'caring' vs. 'clinical care'. Further, the free vs. forced choice format d id not influence patient and staff perceptions of the importance of CARE-Q subscales, except that both groups gave higher values to all subscales in t he free choice response format. The assumptions that different cognitive re presentations of the concepts or the response formats had affected previous CARE-Q results were not substantiated.