BackgroundYukon, a territory in northern Canada, has one of the highest reported sexually transmitted chlamydia infection rates in the country.ObjectiveWe examined screening practices among physicians and community nurses to elucidate factors that may be contributing to the high rates.DesignCross-sectional survey.MethodsA questionnaire was distributed to all physicians in Yukon and all community nurses in Yukon's communities. We surveyed sexual health assessment frequency, chlamydia testing frequency and barriers to screening. Comparison of physician testing practices was performed to another Canadian jurisdiction, which previously undertook a similar survey. Survey results were compared to the available laboratory data in Yukon.ResultsEligible physicians and nurses, 79% and 77%, respectively, participated in the survey. Physicians tested 15 to 24-year-old females more frequently than 15 to 24-year-old males for chlamydia (p=0.007). Physicians who asked sexual health assessment questions were more likely to test for chlamydia in both females (p<0.001) and males (p=0.032). More physicians screened females based on risk factors compared to males. General practice physicians in Yukon were more likely to test females for chlamydia than general practice physicians in Toronto, Canada (p<0.001). Community nurses had different testing patterns than physicians, with a lower overall frequency of testing, equal frequency of testing males and females, and in applying risk factor-based screening to both males and females. Barriers to screening included testing causing patient discomfort, patients reluctant to discuss screening, health provider uncomfortable conducting sexually transmitted infection tests and sexual health assessments, among others. Laboratory data in Yukon appear to confirm provider screening patterns.ConclusionsThis survey provides valuable information on health provider screening patterns. We have some evidence which suggests that chlamydia testing rates may be higher among patients seen by physicians in Yukon in comparison to another Canadian jurisdiction. However, more consistent application of optimal screening methods with support to “start the conversation” around sexual health may assist in overcoming barriers to screening and in addressing Yukon's high rate of chlamydia.

Three experiments compared the effects of visual and tactual stimulus presentation in two-choice sequential learning situations requiring a predictive response. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects received a five-or six-unit repeating pattern; in Experiment 3, they received a semirandom sequence. Tactual as compared to visual stimulus presentation resulted in less trials to criterion in predicting a repeating pattern and in earlier frequency matching in predicting a semirandom sequence. These results suggest an unusual tactual adeptness in binary serial learning. Additionally, a new method of analyzing conditional responding in the probability learning paradigm is described and applied to the data in Experiment 3.

A replication and extension of one of Alloy and Abramson's (1979) studies yielded no evidence that mood influences judgements of control in noncontingent button-pressing tasks. It was found that (a) overestimates of control when outcomes are frequent may be due to selective inattention to and/or poor recall of how often outcomes occurred when no response was made; (b) comparable overestimates of control also occur when outcome frequency is low and noncontingency is detected; (c) such overestimates likely do not reflect a self-serving bias, since students in the low density outcome condition were critical of their own performance. The results suggest that the illusion demonstrated in contingency learning studies may be related to expectations of control and to a common tendency to confirm such expectations when presented with evidence of causality (i.e., co-occurrences) between at least some response-outcome pairings. The implications for future research in this area are discussed, and the possibility is entertained that the depressed are not wiser, but more prone to self-attributions of incompetence in certain contingency learning tasks. Alloy and Abramson (1979) claim in a provocative report that the depressed are wiser than their nondepressed counterparts. In this paper, we focus on some of the complex conceptual and methodological issues raised by that claim. We then present the results of an attempt to replicate and extend their findings and end with a few suggestions for further research on human contingency learning and judgements of control.Alloy and Abramson (1979) carried out four contingency learning experiments. In each, mildly depressed and nondepressed undergraduates were presented with problems differing both in the degree of contingency between responses and outcomes and in the frequency of outcomes. Responses consisted We thank Mark Olioff and the reviewers for their helpful comments, and Laurie Gillies for her assistance in conducting the research.

No abstract

Background: To address the increasing age of pertussis cases, Yukon replaced the Grade 9 tetanus/diphtheria/inactivated polio booster with diphtheria/tetanus/acellular pertussis (dTap) and implemented a dTap catch-up program for Grade 12 students. The program began in June 2004, making Yukon one of the first Canadian jurisdictions to introduce dTap within five years of a tetanus booster. We implemented enhanced surveillance to monitor adverse events following immunization (AEFI) to determine whether students receiving dTap ≥3 to <5 years after their last tetanus booster were at increased risk of severe AEFI.Methods: Students completed a self-administered AEFI questionnaire one week post-dTap vaccination. Public health professionals contacted students reporting severe AEFI. Health care providers were requested to report AEFI. Symptom rate, severity and duration were compared between students receiving dTap ≥3 to <5 years after their last tetanus booster and those receiving it ≥5 years later. Results:The ≥3 to <5 years group was more likely than the ≥5 years group to report pain at the injection site (70.6% vs. 61.5%, p=0.038) and less likely to report injection site redness (10.0% vs. 17.3%, p=0.022), injection site swelling (8.9% vs. 16.4%, p=0.013), decreased energy (10.0% vs. 17.1%, p=0.023), body aches (2.2% vs. 7.2%, p=0.014) and sore joints (3.3% vs. 10.1%, p=0.004). Severe AEFI did not differ between the groups (3.3% vs. 5.6%, p=0.232). Health care professionals reported no AEFI. Conclusions:Results suggest no increased risk of severe AEFI among students receiving dTap ≥3 to <5 years after their last tetanus booster.