pretesting

When large achievement tests are conducted regularly, items need to be calibrated before being used as operational items in a test. Methods have been developed to optimally assign pretest items to examinees based on their abilities. Most of these methods, however, are intended for situations where examinees arrive sequentially to be assigned to calibration items. In several calibration tests, examinees take the test simultaneously or in parallel. In this article, we develop an optimal calibration design tailored for such parallel test setups...

BACKGROUND: Significant barriers to forensic nurse workforce development exist, affecting patient care access. Retention of forensic nurses is a persistent problem, and turnover of forensic nurses can be attributed to many factors related to professional quality of life, including compassion satisfaction (CS), burnout (BO), and secondary traumatic stress (STS). PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to identify the effect of an educational session on the topic of professional quality of life and strategies for mitigating the impact of stressors within the forensic nurse role on Professional Quality of Life Scale-5 and Turnover Intention Scale-6...

Robert Rosenthal died on January 5, 2024, in Riverside, California, at the age of 90. Born March 2, 1933, in Giessen, Germany, just as the Nazis came to power, the young Bob-he always insisted that everyone call him "Bob"-and his family fled in 1939 to Rhodesia (a British African protectorate) before making it to New York and then Los Angeles. Bob's dissertation derived from the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). It compared projection in paranoid schizophrenic patients versus a normal control group after an experimental manipulation...

Background: The aim of this study was to develop a patient-reported experience measure (PREM) for comparing the experience of care received by ambulatory patients with acute unexpected needs presenting in emergency departments (EDs), walk-in clinics, and primary care practices. Methods: The Ambulatory Patient EXperience (APEX) questionnaire was developed using a 5-phase mixed-methods approach. The questionnaire was pretested by asking potential users to rate its clarity, usefulness, redundancy, content and face validities, and discrimination on a 9-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 9 = strongly agree)...

BACKGROUND: Deceased organ donation rates are extremely low in India. As future physicians, medical students can advocate organ donation in society. However, their knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding organ donation remain understudied in India. Therefore, the present study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to deceased organ donation among undergraduate medical students in India using a mixed methods approach. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a mixed-method study with a cross-sectional survey conducted among 400 randomly selected medical students at a medical college in India using a pretested questionnaire...

PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the simplified intervention, consisting of fluid and caffeine management alone in older women with overactive bladder symptoms. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was used. Rural, community-dwelling older women were recruited at four senior centers in South Korea. Of the 63 participants initially enrolled, 34 met the inclusion criteria. One group (n = 15) used fluid and caffeine management alone (FM), and the other group (n = 12) used a combination of fluid and caffeine management and pelvic floor muscle training (FM+PFMT)...

A highly controlled experimental setting using a sample of questions from the European Social Survey (ESS) and European Values Study (EVS) was used to test the effects of integrating machine translation and post-editing into the Translation, Review, Adjudication, Pretesting, and Documentation (TRAPD) approach in survey translation. Four experiments were conducted in total, two concerning the language pair English-German and two in the language pair English-Russian. The overall results of this study are positive for integrating machine translation and post-editing into the TRAPD process, when translating survey questionnaires...

This study aims to present a more systematic and developmental research direction by classifying animal-mediation related research trends published in Korea. We analyzed the research trends of 68 domestic animal-mediation programs published in 26 journals over the past 24 years under the premise of the necessity of animal-assisted therapy, which considered a very effective intervention method in the practice areas of various subjects. Therefore, this study examines the year of publication of animal-mediation related research conducted in various academic fields from 1998 to 2022, research data sources, characteristics of research subjects, types of interventions and research topics, research design and intervention sessions, intervention methods, and ethical consideration statements...

BACKGROUND: Labour pain is one of the most painful experiences that a woman faces in her lifetime. There are various options for labour pain management. Epidural analgesia is the gold standard method for pain management during labour. In developing and under-developed countries there are many challenges to provide this service, a very important one being knowledge about epidural analgesia among the parturients and the physicians. METHODS: A prospective cross-sectional study was carried out among 384 pregnant women attending Antenatal clinic of a tertiary level teaching hospital using pretested structured questionnaire prepared by a team of anaesthesiologists and obstetricians...

BACKGROUND: Understanding spirituality and spiritual care is a prerequisite for holistic care in nursing. Spirituality is an important dimension of human existence with a crucial role in health promotion. The objective of this study was to assess the level of attitude towards spirituality and spiritual care among nurses. METHODS: A cross-sectional analytical study design was used among 208 nurses to assess attitude toward spirituality and spiritual care among nurses of Bharatpur Hospital...

BACKGROUND: The occurrence of pregnancy in the postpartum period poses a risk to women and their infants, and it also has increased risks of adverse health outcomes if a pregnancy happens less than two years after the preceding birth. Utilization of immediate postpartum family planning is a possible and simple way to reduce these unfavourable outcomes. However, only a small proportion of mothers use the service; but the reasons appear unclear. Thus, this study aimed to determine the level and factors associated with the utilization of immediate postpartum family planning in Bole sub-city, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia...

PURPOSE: To translate and cross-culturally adapt PREP2 into Danish and to investigate the face validity and reliability of Danish PREP2 through cognitive interviewing, Rasch and reliability analyses. METHODS: The Danish PREP2 was translated using a standardized procedure and then pretested following the Three-Steps-Interviews (TSTI) process. A total of 15 myopic children aged 7-14 wearing either orthokeratology lenses (ortho-k) or single-vision spectacles (SVS) were included in pretesting comprising cognitive interviews and Rasch analysis...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this research is to investigate the effect of environmental health education given at the ninth-grade level on the microplastic pollution awareness level of students. METHODS: This pretest-posttest experimental study with a randomized control group was conducted between 2022 and 2023 in three high schools in a province in eastern Turkey. The sample of the study consisted of 90 ninth-grade students (experimental group: 45, control group: 45), and the sample magnitude was determined by power analysis...

BACKGROUND: Overprescription of opioids has led to increased misuse of opioids, resulting in higher rates of overdose. The workplace can play a vital role in an individual's intentions to misuse prescription opioids with injured workers being prescribed opioids, at a rate 3 times the national average. For example, health care workers are at risk for injuries, opioid dispensing, and diversion. Intervening within a context that may contribute to risks for opioid misuse while targeting individual psychosocial factors may be a useful complement to interventions at policy and prescribing levels...

Immunization is a public health intervention to reduce morbidity and mortality among children. However, vaccination becomes more effective if the child can receive the full course of recommended vaccination doses according to the schedule. Many children fail to complete the full course of vaccination. To identify the determinants of immunization defaulters among children aged 12-23 months in Ambo town, Oromia, Ethiopia. A community-based, unmatched, case-control study was done from October 1 to 25, 2021...

BACKGROUND: Glucose breath test (GBT) is used for the diagnosis of small intestine bacterial overgrowth. A restrictive diet without fibers and/or fermentable food is recommended on the day before the test. The aim of our retrospective study was to evaluate the impact of two different restrictive diets on the results of GBT. METHODS: A change of the pretest restrictive diet was applied in our lab on September 1, 2020. The recommended diet was a fiber-free diet before this date, and a fiber-free diet plus restriction of all fermentable food afterward...

AIM: The present study was conducted to generate data on awareness and incidence of sickle cell disease (SCD) and also to adduce the widespread myths peddled about SCD. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Students studying in the Department of Nursing were recruited. A pretested, self-administered sickle cell assessment questionnaire was distributed electronically through WhatsApp group to collect necessary data. Participants were screened for malaria by thin blood smear analyses, and their hemoglobin (Hb) contents (g/dL) were determined by Sahli's haemoglobinometer...

BACKGROUND: Metabolic syndrome consists of cardiometabolic risk factors that promote the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, type 2 'DM' and obesity. These are associated with increased cardiovascular mortality and morbidity. Metabolic disorders (MD) are becoming more prevalent both in developing countries and developed countries and are now considered as lifestyle diseases. In women of reproductive age group, especially pregnancy, the blood glucose level is increasing which adversely affects the health of mother and child...

Mental health first aid (MHFA) training is a low-cost, evidence-based intervention that teaches trainees to recognize signs of mental distress. Thirty correctional officers (COs) were recruited to participate in a remote MHFA intervention study. The COs were divided into three MHFA training sessions, with no more than 10 COs per group. Data collection assessments included pretest and posttest surveys and a focus group meeting. Of the 30 eligible CO participants, 27 completed the study, including follow-up assessments...

OBJECTIVE: Active duty military surgeons often have limited trauma surgery experience prior to deployment. Consequently, military-civilian training programs have been developed at high-volume trauma centers to evaluate and maintain proficiencies. Advanced Surgical Skills for Exposure in Trauma (ASSET) was incorporated into the predeployment curriculum at the Army Trauma Training Detachment in 2011. This is the first study to assess whether military surgeons demonstrated improved knowledge and increased confidence after taking ASSET...