Abstracts

Objectives

To determine acceptability of medical cannabis research in critically ill patients.

Design

Q-methodology survey.

Setting

Convenience sample of health-care providers and the general public were recruited at an acute care community hospital in Ontario, Canada.

Participants

In the first phase, 63 respondents provided 197 unique viewpoints in response to a topic statement about medical cannabis use in critically ill patients. Twenty-five viewpoints were selected for the q-sample. In the second phase, 99 respondents ranked these viewpoints according to an a priori quasi normal distribution ranging from +4 (most agree) to -4 (least agree). Factor analysis was combined with comments provided by survey respondents to label and describe the extracted factors.

Results

The factor labels were hoping and caring (factor 1), pragmatic progress (factor 2), and cautious/conservative and protectionist (factor 3). Factor 1 describes a viewpoint of unequivocal support for medical cannabis research in this population with few caveats. Factor 2 describes a viewpoint of cautious support with a need to monitor for unintended adverse effects. Factor 3 describes a viewpoint of ensuring that current analgosedation techniques are optimized before exposing patients to another potentially harmful drug.The group intervention for people with lung cancer was feasible to both run and evaluate. Participants responded positively to the program. Findings will inform changes to future sessions and an analysis of multiple sessions is planned.

Conclusions

Using a q-methodology design, we were able to sample and describe the viewpoints that exist about medical cannabis research in critically ill patients. Three factors emerged that seemed to adequately describe the relative ranking of q-statements by the majority of respondents. Combining the distinguishing statements along with respondent comments allowed us to determine that the majority support medical cannabis research in critically ill patients.