The findings show a lack of adequate pain assessments, little use of nonpharmacologic interventions, and inappropriate use of analgesic medication. The small percentage of residents with chronic pain assessed objectively suggests the difficulty of monitoring pain progression in NFs. The prescribing of analgesic for most residents (with propoxyphene used most often, long-acting opioids used infrequently, and frequent prn use) was inconsistent with recommended pain therapy in older people and attests to the urgent need to educate NF practitioners on the appropriate use of analgesics.

Among the substantial percentage of residents treated with AEDs, the lack of diagnosis of seizure type has serious implications for the choice of AED therapy. Opportunities exist for prescribing physicians, consultant pharmacists, and nursing staff to improve the medical management of nursing facility residents with seizures and of others receiving AEDs.

For many years student ratings have been used to assess the strengths and weaknesses of various courses and the teaching abilities of the instructors involved. Investigators have either supported or attacked the validity of this assessment procedure on the basis of the direction and degree of the relationship found between student rating of a course and student achievement in that course. This validation study supplemented correlation analysis with analysis of variance to compare groups at various achievement levels and to control for the possible confounding effects of overall group analysis. Medical students responded to a Likert attitude scale about aspects of an anatomy course. The mean attitude scores for a high and a low course achievement group were significantly different at the 0.005 level; the high achievement group had a more positive course attitude.

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