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The value of pretesting in the surgical curriculum.
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Prolonged hormone deprivation and pretest cage adaptation as factors affecting the display of lordosis by female rats.
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Retention of appetitive operant conditioning in mice as a function of training-to-test interval: effects of pretest electric stimulation of the hippocampus.
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A pretest procedure reliably predicts performance in two animal models of inescapable stress.
Rats exposed to inescapable tailshock fail to learn a shuttle-escape task 24 hours later, an effect referred to as "learned helplessness." However, within most rat strains only 10-50% of the animals tested develop this syndrome. In the present study a significant correlation was found between rats that displayed learned helplessness on the first test and those that displayed learned helplessness on a second test performed either 2 weeks (r = .80, p less than 0.001) or 4 weeks (r = .74, p less than 0.001) later. An analysis of the mean session latency of the shuttlebox task in these two tests suggested a bimodal distribution of animals that failed and learned. A significant correlation was found between individual rats that learned this task on the first test and those which learned this task 2 or 4 weeks later. Similarly, in the "behavioral despair" test, a significant correlation was observed for floating time for individual rats on the first test and on the second test either 2 (r = .72, p less than 0.001) or 4 weeks (r = .63, p less than 0.001) later. However, for the forced-swim test, a unimodal and rather graded response was observed across individual subjects. Thus, performance on the first round predicted performance on the second round in both models. When rats experienced the learned helplessness paradigm on round 1 and the behavioral despair paradigm in round 2, there was no correlation between rats that displayed helplessness following inescapable tailshock and the rats that demonstrated "behavioral despair" on a later test.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Amnesia induced by short-term treatment with ethanol: attenuation by pretest oxotremorine.
CD-1 mice were administered a series of tones paired with footshock in the closed arm of a Y maze. On a test session 8 days later the animals were tested for retention of the conditioned emotional response (CER). On the 2-min test session, the three arms of the maze were open and the number of entries into the arms was counted. Retention of the CER was measured by the decrease in the number of entries in comparison with animals trained with no footshock. Starting 24 hr after training, and continuing for the 7 days between training and testing, the animals in different groups received a daily IP injection of saline, 3.6 g/kg of ethanol, 150 micrograms/kg of the cholinergic muscarinic agonist oxotremorine, or ethanol plus oxotremorine. Retention was evaluated 24 hr after the last injection. Ethanol reduced retention of the conditioned emotional response. This effect was attenuated by oxotremorine (150 micrograms/kg) given IP 6 min prior to testing, but not by the same dose of oxotremorine given daily together with the ethanol treatment. Oxotremorine injections administered prior to the retention test also enhanced the retention performance of the control group. Daily oxotremorine administration had no effect. These findings suggest that ethanol weakened retention of the conditioned emotional response, that this effect was unrelated to acquisition or consolidation, and that the deleterious effect of the ethanol treatment can be attenuated by oxotremorine administered prior to the retention test.
Facilitation of retention performance in mice by pretest microinjection of AVP into dorsal or ventral hippocampus: differential influence of the peptide on appetitive task.
Pre-test local microinjection of arginine-vasopressin (AVP) into dorsal or ventral hippocampus resulted in an improvement of retention performance in an appetitively motivated task. Nevertheless, a better improvement appeared when AVP treatment was performed into ventral hippocampus suggesting a higher sensitivity of this part of hippocampus to the action of AVP. To examine a non-specific behavioral action of the peptide, the effect of AVP treatment on locomotor activity was assessed. When the treatment was given into ventral hippocampus, a reduction of locomotor activity was recorded, whereas after AVP injection into dorsal hippocampus, the peptide failed to alter locomotor activity.
Tailoring communication in cancer genetic counseling through individual video-supported feedback: a controlled pretest-posttest design.
OBJECTIVES: To assess the influence of a 1-day individual video-feedback training for cancer genetic counselors on the interaction during initial visits. Feedback was intended to help counselors make counselees' needs more explicit and increase counselors' sensitivity to these. METHODS: In total 158 counselees, mainly referred for breast or colon cancer and visiting 1 of 10 counselors, received a pre- and post-visit questionnaire assessing needs (fulfillment). Visits were videotaped, counselor eye gaze was assessed, and verbal communication was analyzed by Roter Interaction Analysis System (RIAS) adapted to the genetic setting. Halfway the study, five counselors were trained. RESULTS: Trained counselors provided more psychosocial information, and with trained counselors emotional consequences of DNA-testing was more often discussed. Counselees seen by a trained counselor considered their need for explanations on (emotional) consequences of counseling as better fulfilled. Unexpectedly, counselees' contribution to the interaction was smaller with trained counselors. CONCLUSION: Feedback appeared to result in greater emphasis on psychosocial issues, without lengthening the visit. However, counselors did not become more verbally supportive in other ways than by providing information. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: A 1 day individual training appears effective to some extend; increased opportunities for watching and practicing behavioral alternatives and arranging consolidating sessions may improve training results.
Pretesting as a teaching tool in a child psychiatry clerkship.
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Dobutamine stress echocardiography in the detection of coronary artery disease: importance of the pretest likelihood of disease.
Although the accuracy of dobutamine stress echocardiography for the detection of coronary artery disease in a high-risk population is known, it has not been well defined for lower risk groups. Two probability groups, high (>75%; n = 199) and intermediate (>10% but < or =75%; n = 118), were studied. Dobutamine stress echocardiography was performed in a standard fashion. Significant coronary artery disease was defined as a >50% luminal diameter stenosis on coronary angiography. The positive predictive accuracy of dobutamine stress echocardiography for the detection of coronary artery disease was greater in the high-probability group (96% vs 86%), as was the sensitivity (89% vs 78%), whereas the negative predictive value was greater in the intermediate-probability group (50% vs 23%), as was the specificity (63% vs 50%). Dobutamine stress echocardiography does have a diagnostic role in the evaluation of patients with an intermediate probability of coronary artery disease.
Pretest CS cueing facilitates the recovery of avoidance behavior following visual cortex lesions in the rat.
Rats were trained on a four-way shuttle box with a compound light-tone conditioned stimulus (CS) until they emitted 7 avoidance responses in 10 trials (7/10) prior to bilateral ablation of the visual cortex or sham surgery. On Day 5 after surgery, rats were cued with either the compound light-tone CS, the light or tone portion of the CS only, or had no exposure to the CS. On Day 10 after surgery, all animals were tested for avoidance retention under the same conditions as preoperative training. The findings indicate that following a lesion, cueing with the light-tone compound CS facilitates performance as does light alone. Cueing to the tone alone has no effect. In sham animals, only cueing with the light-tone CS was effective in enhancing avoidance retention. Results are interpreted as early and modality-specific sensory cueing may facilitate the recovery process.
Algorithms for the diagnosis of deep-vein thrombosis in patients with low clinical pretest probability.
The objective of this current trial was to evaluate the rate of deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) in patients after low clinical risk stratification and to evaluate the value of D-dimer and different imaging techniques in the diagnostic algorithm. A total of 99 consecutive patients were included in this prospective trial. After clinical risk assessment, D-dimer was determined. Final diagnosis was based on the results of duplex sonography, in cases of indeterminate scans on those of ascending venography. Three months after admission, follow-up investigations were performed by a telephone interview to evaluate possible further venous thromboembolism. Final diagnosis was based on the results of colour Doppler ultrasound in 92.9% and on those of venography in 7.1%. DVT was diagnosed in 2%, D-dimer was positive in 48.4%, giving a sensitivity of 100%, a specificity of 52.7% and a negative predictive value of 100%. Follow-up was possible in 89.9%--no further thromboembolic event occurred. In this specific patient group, a negative D-dimer excludes DVT and can therefore reduce the number of imaging procedures by one-half, which, on the contrary, is necessary in patients with positive D-dimer.
"Prevalence" or "pretest likelihood" of coronary artery disease?
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Pretesting survey instruments: an overview of cognitive methods.
This article puts forward the case that survey questionnaires, which are a type of measuring instrument, can and should be tested to ensure they meet their purpose. Traditionally survey researchers have been pre-occupied with 'standardising' data collection instruments and procedures such as question wording and have assumed that experience in questionnaire design, coupled with pilot testing of questionnaires, will then ensure valid and reliable results. However, implicit in the notion of standardisation are the assumptions that respondents are able to understand the questions being asked, that questions are understood in the same way by all respondents, and that respondents are willing and able to answer such questions. The development of cognitive question testing methods has provided social researchers with a number of theories and tools to test these assumptions, and to develop better survey instruments and questionnaires. This paper describes some of these theories and tools, and argues that cognitive testing should be a standard part of the development process of any survey instrument.
Contribution of pretesting to several measures of semantic desensitization effectiveness.
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Pretest expectancies and cognitive impairment in alcoholics.
Alcoholics' neurological deficits have been attributed to cognitive impairment associated with brain dysfunction. Because alcoholics perceive themselves as impaired in higher cognitive functions, we investigated the alternative hypothesis that their deficits are predicted by lowered expectancies for successful performance. Ss were 48 male, middle-aged Veterans Administration inpatient alcoholics and 36 community controls. Subjects completed a standard series of neuropsychological tests. Before taking each test, Ss were asked how well they expected to do on that test in relation to members of their community. As predicted, means for the overall measures of expectancies and performance were significantly lower for alcoholics than for control Ss. Although expectancies were significantly correlated with performance, regression analyses indicated they could not account for the obtained performance differences.
Effect of food deprivation and unconditioned operant pretests on bar pressing for light in the albino rat.
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Influence of pretest shock upon rate of electrical self-stimulation of the brain.
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