The future of distance and Web-enhanced education and the use of technology are becoming more advantageous to a growing population. Nursing education has been encouraged to incorporate these teaching-learning methods. Changes in nursing education and the teaching-learning environment have the potential to challenge the preservation of nursing…

This dissertation presents the results of three field experiments implemented to evaluate the effectiveness of strategies to improve the health or education of children in developing countries. In Guatemala, community health workers at randomly selected clinics were given patient tracking lists to improve their ability to remind parents when their…

Objective: To explore the effects of brief training in Motivational interviewing (MI) for medical students. Design: Video recordings of consultations between 113 final-year medical students and simulated patients were scored blind by two independent raters with the Motivational Interviewing Skill Code (MISC). Half of the students participated in a…

While alcohol remains the drug of choice among college students, marijuana ranks number two with 32 percent reporting using marijuana in 2008. That's a modest decline from 2001, when 36 percent of college students reported marijuana use. While levels of marijuana use by students are determined through a number of national and local surveys, no…

This study aims at investigating the production of the Greek modal and negative particles by non-fluent aphasic patients. These particles belong to the highest part of the verb periphrasis, so they are likely to be impaired in non-fluent aphasia, according to some hypotheses about agrammatic language. Moreover, there is an agreement relation…

This study investigated the relationship between acoustic spectral/cepstral measures and listener severity ratings in normal and disordered voice samples. CAPE-V sentence samples and the vowel /[script]/were elicited from eight normal speakers and 24 patients with varying degrees of dysphonia severity. Samples were analysed for measures of the…

Objective: The study tested whether adding up to 18 months of telephone continuing care, either as monitoring and feedback (TM) or longer contacts that included counseling (TMC), to intensive outpatient programs (IOPs) improved outcomes for alcohol-dependent patients. Method: Participants (N = 252) who completed 3 weeks of IOP were randomized to…

The literature pertaining to intelligence assessment reveals an ongoing discussion about the areas of intelligence captured by nonverbal tests. To date, few studies have investigated the criterion validity of the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence, Third Edition (TONI-3). The present study investigates the concurrent validity of the TONI-3 in a sample…

The use of standardized patients to assess communication skills is now an essential part of assessing a physician's readiness for practice. To improve the reliability of communication scores, it has become increasingly common in recent years to use statistical models to adjust ratings provided by standardized patients. This study employed ordinary…

Alcohol-related problems are especially common among opioid treatment program (OTP) patients, suggesting that educating OTP patients about alcohol and its harmful effects needs to be a priority in OTPs. Using data collected in interviews with a nationwide U.S. sample of OTP directors (N = 200) in 25 states, we identified factors that differentiate…

Human observers use prior constraints to disambiguate a scene; in particular, light is preferentially seen as coming from above but also slightly from the left. One explanation of this lateral bias could be a cerebral hemispheric difference. The aim of the present study was to determine the preferred light source position for neglect patients. For…

In case of an emergency, a fast and structured patient management is crucial for patient's outcome. The competencies needed should be acquired and assessed during medical education. The objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) is a valid and reliable assessment format to evaluate practical skills. However, traditional OSCE stations examine…

Completion of the dissertation is an important milestone and often a major obstacle for PhD candidates, some of whom become and remain all-but-the-dissertation students. All-but-the-dissertation students usually disappoint both themselves and their departments. Thus it is important to understand the psychology of the dissertation. A review of…

An objective test for evaluating functional status of the upper limbs (ULs) in patients with muscular distrophy (MD) is presented. The method allows for quantitative assessment of the UL functional state with an emphasis on force exertion capacity. The experimental measurement setup and the methodology for the assessment of maximal exertable force…

Aim: To examine the passive length-tension relations in the myotendinous components of the plantarflexor muscles of children with and without cerebral palsy (CP) under conditions excluding reflex muscle contraction. Method: A cross-sectional, non-interventional study was conducted in a hospital outpatient clinic. Passive torque-angle…