Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to T Newton.
A survey was carried out of 102 members of the general public, asking for their views of the recent changes in the government funding of NHS dentistry. Approximately 80% of those surveyed had heard about the changes. The majority thought that the implications of the change would be a rise in costs to patients and a fall in the number of NHS dentists.
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The striving after perfection has been often mentioned in clinical literature; however, there have been few systematic analyses of the concept. In the present study, a questionnaire measure of Perfectionism and General Dissatisfaction (the SCANS) together with the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and measures thought to gauge aspects of perfectionistic thinking, were administered to a mixed group of 148 subjects, including 25 eating disorder patients. Perfectionism was found to correlate negatively with Psychoticism (as measured by the EPQ) and positively with the Lie scale. Thus Perfectionism appears to be associated with a tendency to deny personally deviant behaviour and to present oneself in the best possible light. It is also associated with greater accuracy in a visual search task. General Dissatisfaction was correlated significantly with Neuroticism, Introversion and Psychoticism. It thus appears to be related to a combination of 'neurotic introversion' and 'personality deviance'. It is also associated with a tendency to be under-inclusive, that is to find difficulty in ruling out irrelevant stimuli when forming categories. Dissatisfaction was also associated with increased reaction time in the visual search task, perhaps also a reflection of an inability to ignore irrelevant stimuli. Only the EPQ N and P scales successfully differentiated neurotic or dissatisfied perfectionists from normal or satisfied perfectionists, although several measures derived from the visual search task produced results which were approaching significance.
This study demonstrated experimental control of nurse compliance with writing behavioural objectives in a National Health Service adult training unit for mentally handicapped adults. At the baseline, low rates of compliance in writing complete behavioural objectives (i.e. an objective referring to a resident, an action, a prompt and a target) were identified. A simple environmental manipulation, namely redesigning the activity charts, led to an increase in writing complete behavioural objectives. Experimental control was demonstrated using a multiple baseline design across two groups of staff. Nurse compliance with writing adequate prompts and targets was less than compliance with writing names and behaviours. Greater degrees of compliance may require alternative methods of staff management such as feedback procedures.
The Pain Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ) was administered to 58 health care professionals with a concurrent validation measure, the Knowledge of Behavioral Principles Questionnaire. The PAQ showed adequate internal consistency, concurrent and criterion group validities. Attempts to develop two parallel forms of the PAQ and replicate the factor structure reported by Saunders & Webster (1982) were unsuccessful.
The psychometric properties of the test entitled Knowledge of Behavioral Principles as Applied to Children and two shortened forms of this test were investigated in two samples of British subjects. The first consisted of 162 psychiatric nurses, psychiatrists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and clinical psychologists attending behaviour modification courses. The second consisted of 49 teachers and nurses, all working with the mentally retarded, who completed the test by post. The whole test and the two sets of parallel forms all showed good internal consistency and sensitivity to change. Some shrinkage during replication was found. The 25-item forms showed evidence of the properties of parallel forms (equal means, standard deviations and standard errors) in both samples. The 10-item forms were also parallel in sample 1. However the 10-item forms did not remain parallel in sample 2 and so cannot always be recommended.
The potency of dl-cathinone (the active constituent of the Khat plant) was compared with that of d-amphetamine in the conditioned taste aversion (C.T.A.) procedure and in a test of drug-induced adipsia in rats. Both drugs induced C.T.A., the potency ratio being 1:17 (amphetamine was more potent). Both drugs induced adipsia in deprived rats given access to water for 120 min. The potency ratio in this procedure was 1:4. Potency in the C.T.A. procedure did not therefore correlate with potency in inducing adipsia; consequently drug-induced C.T.A. cannot be attributed to conditioned adipsia. In the adipsia test the drugs had similar durations of action, thus factors related to duration of drug action (cf Cappell and Le Blanc 1977) cannot account for the surprisingly low potency of cathinone in the C.T.A. procedure. These data, obtained with stimulant drugs with similar structures and similar actions in a variety of conventional in vivo and in vitro pharmacological tests, illustrate the unpredictable nature of drug actions in the C.T.A. procedure. The low potency of cathinone in inducing C.T.A. could not be predicted from knowledge of the potency of this compound in tests of adipsia (as shown here) or (as reported elsewhere) in tests of anorexia, locomotor stimulation, stereotypy, suppression of operant responding, drug discrimination, release and inhibition of reuptake of dopamine and noradrenaline, lethality and actions on the cardiovascular system. All of these studies have reported potency ratios considerably lower than 1:17, which were nevertheless similar to the 1:4 ratio observed in the adipsia test.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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