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Evaluation of psychosocial treatments.

The most widely chosen dimensions in the evaluation of psychosocial treatments are structure evaluation, process evaluation and outcome evaluation. The measurement of structure focuses on the inputs to a system intended for promoting mental health. The measurement of process shows how the inputs are used. And finally the measurement of outcome gives information about the effectiveness of the treatment in the terms of outcome. Five basic questions of outcome evaluation are: appropriateness, adequacy, effectiveness, efficiency and side effects of the treatment. Using these concepts this article analyzes different parts of the treatment process and their evaluation. The emphasis is on the problems of evaluation of psychotherapy research and especially on outcome research in psychotherapy.

Adult

Measuring and tracking education program implementation: the Minnesota Heart Health Program experience.

In an overall framework uniting program planning and evaluation, process evaluation can assist community-based health promotion programs in establishing participation objectives, monitoring their achievement and the quality of interventions used, and translating these into useful information for managing and developing programs. This research reports on efforts by the Minnesota Heart Health Program to develop a system that permitted tracking educational program contacts, its implementation, and its use to make management decisions about program activities. The system was developed as part of a planning and evaluation framework with specific criteria for developing and tracking educational programs drawn from the social-learning literature. Overall, the system helped to make participation objectives more concrete, aided decision making about allocation of personnel and material resources, and encouraged the development of innovative programs.

Cardiovascular Diseases

Free energy of charges in solvated proteins: microscopic calculations using a reversible charging process.

Evaluation of the free energy of ionization of acidic groups in proteins may be used as a powerful and general test case for determining the reliability of calculations of electrostatic energies in macromolecules. This work attacks this test case by using an adiabatic charging process that evaluates the changes in free energies associated with ionizing the acidic groups Asp-3 and Glu-7 in bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor and aspartic acid in solution. The results of these free energy calculations are very encouraging; the error range is about 1 kcal/mol for these free energy changes of about-70 kcal/mol. This indicates that we are finally approaching the stage of obtaining quantitative results in modeling the energetics of solvated proteins.

Aprotinin

A critique of project evaluations.

In recent years an increased stress has been placed on the evaluation of mental health, education, and welfare service programs. The majority of studies readily available to most evaluators represent local project evaluations which usually contain diverse references to different aspects of the evaluative process. For evaluative results to be even minimally useful to other projects, however, certain requirements must be met. These are: (1) internal validity, (2) external validity, (3) specification of the population and treatment being implemented, and (4) standardization of indicators of treatment impact. To determine the extent to which published project impact evaluations meet these criteria, a study was undertaken to "evaluate the evaluations" themselves within heroin addiction treatment programs. Six high-yield journals and 100 random sources were systematically searched for reports of evaluations which provided measures of success in terms of the consumer. Articles were analyzed in regard to our four prerequisites for cross-project comparisons regarding process variables, impact variables, and methodologies. It became clear, however, that our original objectives in evaluating either the usefulness of published project evaluations or testing any specific impact hypotheses were not achievable due to the state of evaluative measurement and reporting practices at this time. The major problems we eoncountered in our inability to complete a necessary and potentially fruitful comparative assessment of project evaluations are discussed in detail with recommendations for future work.

Heroin Dependence

Pharmacy-coordinated process for evaluating physician drug prescribing.

A pharmacy-coordinated process is described in which the frequency and types of inappropriate drug prescribing are evaluated as part of the medical staff quality assurance and physician credentialing program. A pharmacist intervention program was implemented at an 838-bed private hospital to review all medication orders for appropriateness and to intervene with physicians and nurses when problems in drug prescribing or administration were identified. During a five-year period there were more than 6500 drug therapy interventions. Because of the recurrent problems identified, the medical staff asked the pharmacy department to develop a process for objectively evaluating the quality of prescribing practices that could be used in the medical staff quality assurance program and in physician credentialing. The drug-prescribing activities of physicians applying for clinical privileges are subjected to a "macro" review by using a computerized clinical financial information system to extract drug-use information from patients' bills. In a "micro" review, patient records are retrospectively analyzed by Pharm.D. clinical specialists; all medications prescribed by the physician for those patients being evaluated are scrutinized. Appropriate response scores are calculated by dividing the number of appropriate responses by the total responses. The pharmacy department in this hospital has assumed a more active role in patient care through its participation in a process for objectively evaluating the quality of prescribing practices.

Diagnosis-Related Groups

Evaluating humanistic attributes of internal medicine residents.

OBJECTIVE: Methods of assessing humanism in internal medicine residents have not been completely designed or evaluated. This study used patient satisfaction as a measure of humanism, and assessed the validity of using faculty physicians to evaluate residents' humanistic behavior. Residents' ability to assess themselves was also evaluated. SETTING: A university-affiliated internal medicine training program. SUBJECTS: Forty-seven internal medicine residents were evaluated by patients, faculty, and themselves. DESIGN: Faculty physicians were given standard faculty evaluation and patient satisfaction forms, and were asked to evaluate residents. These evaluations were compared with the patients' responses on the same satisfaction forms. Residents performed self-assessment using identical forms; these responses were compared with those of the faculty and patients. RESULTS: There was no correlation between patients' responses and those of the faculty or residents. There was a significant inverse correlation between resident and faculty responses, especially for the female residents (r = 0.71). CONCLUSION: These findings suggest the need for further study of the evaluation process, including what factors influence individuals to respond as they do. It appears that the use of one rating group is not sufficient to achieve an accurate assessment of residents' humanistic skills. The present status of the process of evaluating humanism is discussed.

Adolescent

Independent threats and self-evaluation maintenance processes.

The present study investigated the independence of Self-Evaluation Maintenance (SEM) processes and the larger self-system. SEM processes are activated whenever another's performance is made salient relative to one's own. According to the SEM model, when one is outperformed by a close other on a task high in self-relevance, self-esteem is lowered and a negative affect state is generated. When one is outperformed by a close other on a task low in self-relevance, however, self-esteem and positive affect are actually enhanced, because one can take pride in the other's accomplishments. There are many sources of threat or enhancement to self-esteem, however, that are unrelated to one's performance relative to another's. The present study, using American undergraduates as subjects, examined the impact that these unrelated self-esteem threats or enhancements might have on SEM processes, that is, whether a prior unrelated ego-threatening or ego-enhancing experience modulates the effects of SEM processes. It was expected that a prior ego-threatening experience would augment the impact of SEM variables, whereas an ego-enhancing experience would attenuate the effect. Results, however, indicated little interaction between SEM processes and unrelated threats or enhancements to self-esteem.

Achievement

Microbiological evaluation of Pacific shrimp processing.

Microbiological evaluation of Pacific shrimp (Pandalus jordani) processing was made from samples obtained at five key processing points. The microbial count of raw shrimp ranged from 1.3 x 10(6) to 3.0 x 10(6). The initial microbial flora, in order of predominance, was Acinetobacter-Moraxella, Flavobacterium, Pseudomonas, gram-positive cocci, and Bacillus species. No yeasts were isolated. Differences in processing practices influenced both microbial count and the shrimp flora. The microbial load, however, always increased after peeling and sorting operations and decreased after cooking, washing, and brining steps. Significantly, the gram-positive cocci were recovered with increasing frequency after each processing step, reaching 76% of the total load in a final product. Most of them, however, were coagulase-negative.

Alcaligenes

Evolution of evaluation criteria in the College of American Pathologists Surveys.

This review of the evolution of evaluation criteria in the College of American Pathologists Survey and of theoretical grounds proposed for evaluation criteria explores the complex nature of the evaluation process. Survey professionals balance multiple variables to seek relevant and meaningful evaluations. These include the state of the art, the reliability of target values, the nature of available control materials, the perceived medical "nonusefulness" of the extremes of performance (good or poor), this extent of laboratory services provided, and the availability of scientific data and theory by which clinically relevant criteria of medical usefulness may be established. The evaluation process has consistently sought peer concensus, to stimulate improvement in state of the art, to increase medical usefulness, and to monitor the state of the art. Recent factors that are likely to promote change from peer group evaluation to fixed criteria evaluation are the high degree of proficiency in the state of the art for many analytes, accurate target values, increased knowledge of biologic variation, and the availability of statistical modeling techniques simulating biologic and diagnostic processes as well as analytic processes.

Academies and Institutes

An overview of process hazard evaluation techniques.

Since the 1985 release of methyl isocyanate in Bhopal, India, which killed thousands, the chemical industry has begun to use process hazard analysis techniques more widely to protect the public from catastrophic chemical releases. These techniques can provide a systematic method for evaluating a system design to ensure that it operates as intended, help identify process areas that may result in the release of a hazardous chemical, and help suggest modifications to improve process safety. Eight different techniques are discussed, with some simple examples of how they might be applied. These techniques include checklists, "what if" analysis, safety audits and reviews, preliminary hazard analysis (PHA), failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA), fault tree analysis (FTA), event tree analysis (ETA), and hazard and operability studies (HAZOP). The techniques vary in sophistication and scope, and no single one will always be the best. These techniques can also provide the industrial hygienist with the tools needed to protect both workers and the community from both major and small-scale chemical releases. A typical industrial hygiene evaluation of a facility would normally include air sampling. If the air sampling does detect a specific hazardous substance, the source will probably be a routine or continuous emission. However, air sampling will not be able to identify or predict the location of a nonroutine emission reliably. By incorporating these techniques with typical evaluations, however, industrial hygienists can proactively help reduce the hazards to the workers they serve.

Accident Prevention