Is “end of life” a special case? Connecting Q with survey methods to measure societal support for views on the value of life‐extending treatments

Preference elicitation studies reporting societal views on the relative value of end‐of‐life treatments have produced equivocal results. This paper presents an alternative method, combining Q methodology and survey techniques (Q2S) to determine the distribution of 3 viewpoints on the relative value of end‐of‐life treatments identified in a previous, published, phase of this work. These were Viewpoint 1, “A population perspective: value for money, no special cases”; Viewpoint 2, “Life is precious: valuing life‐extension and patient choice”; and Viewpoint 3, “Valuing wider benefits and opportunity cost: the quality of life and death.” A Q2S survey of 4,902 respondents across the United Kingdom measured agreement with these viewpoints; 37% most agreed with Viewpoint 1, 49% with Viewpoint 2, and 9% with Viewpoint 3. Regression analysis showed associations of viewpoints with gender, level of education, religion, voting preferences, and satisfaction with the NHS. The Q2S approach provides a promising means to investigate how in‐depth views and opinions are represented in the wider population. As demonstrated in this study, there is often more than 1 viewpoint on a topic and methods that seek to estimate that averages may not provide the best guidance for societal decision‐making.